The Oppressed Read online

  Jess walked beside him. O and Alona sat in another truck a block away, only slightly better armed. Kendrick had his spot in one of the abandoned buildings overlooking the meeting location. Taylor and Jedynak occupied another building covering the other direction. Most of the rest of the team, fully armed, stayed in the hills ten minutes away. Over all of it, Loki watched.

  Still, Bryan felt naked.

  The air was cold and still. Snow flurries fell so light they were barely noticeable. He scanned around him out of habit and saw nothing. Deliberately, he walked towards the door outlined by light seeping through from within.

  To call the small dining facility, he wouldn't call it a restaurant, cozy anywhere else would be a joke. But there, in the farmlands on occupied Earth, it passed. A few tables scattered about the floor. Electric lights, a luxury, provided yellowy illumination. Off in the corner, a self-serve buffet provided extremely limited options of vegetables, some fruit, and beans. Bryan and Jess each filled chipped coffee mugs with a lukewarm concoction labeled as "tea."

  Without asking, they pulled chairs out from across their quarry and sat.

  He was young enough that if he was alive during the invasion, he didn't remember it. His black hair was cropped nearly to the scalp. Matched with the large-framed glasses that didn't exactly fit his prescription, his face looked undersized for his head. His scrawny arms rested on a yellowed book, and he held a mug in one hand. He looked up, startled, and taken aback at sudden visitors.

  "Josiah Hernandez," Bryan began. "How do you like your job with the Hetarek?"

  The man leaned backward defensively, not forward in confidence. That was a good sign. "Who... who are you?"

  Bryan shrugged. "Just a couple of humans wanting to meet their new speaker."

  He stared at the pair for a long time, his hands starting to shake. "Excuse me, I think I should leave." Objective Banquo started to push back his chair. Bryan held up a hand, but didn't grab him.

  "Please, it'll only take a second to talk to us." Jess said.

  "If this is an attempt to intimidate me, it won't work." The quivering in his voice and tremor in his hand betrayed that he was already intimidated.

  "It isn't." Bryan lied. "We just want to talk to you about your new job."

  "The Hetarek will be here any minute. Or the Metic Ahai."

  "The Hetarek don't trust you enough or care enough about you for you to be tied to them all the time. You're just a tool for them. They cut you loose about an hour ago, like they usually do. You came back here where you'll spend the next thirty minutes alone before returning to your barely guarded house across the enclave. You won't see another Hetarek until tomorrow morning. As for the Metic Ahai, well, they don't need you to do their work." Jess reported.

  "We hear that you used to really care about the people in your enclave, before you took this job. What was the word we heard?" Bryan asked Jess.

  "’Compassion.’"

  "That's right. That you had compassion for others. You used to help out the sick and injured with their work. Now you're a speaker. That's an interesting change."

  The target stared at them rather than respond. "You're the Runners, aren't you? The ones the Hetarek are always talking about."

  "I'm not really crazy about that term, honestly." Bryan replied without a direct answer.

  "That's how a lot of us see you, though. You ran."

  "I get it. I definitely count myself as lucky." Bryan waved over his shoulder in the general direction of the mountains. "I ran from over there, actually. On the west side. We ran to an evacuation site. Someone grabbed me and tossed me into a Quinalt, and then I was off my home planet and in a strange part of space. I was scared and confused, but I know it was nothing compared to how everyone here felt. But we're back now to help out. We'd want you to help us too. Help make it right."

  "I could report you to the Hetarek. I could tell them you're here." Bryan didn't believe the young man's attempt to play tough.

  "You wouldn't really want to do that, though."

  "Why not?"

  "Because of how you got the job. Your predecessor? The Hetarek executed him."

  The man stared down at his cup. "Yeah."

  "Because they stopped trusting him."

  "Yeah."

  "And what happened to his predecessor?" Bryan asked with only an assumption as to the answer.

  "They killed him too."

  "So let's think about it. Chances are, the Hetarek are going to kill you eventually. We know they already don't trust you. You have a reputation for at least trying to do what's right for your people. You're not going to report us. You're already fucked, man. So what what are you going to do about it?"

  Josiah shifted in his seat. "Can you please just tell me what you want?"

  "I just want my wife and kids to come see where I grew up. I want to take them to the San Juans where I used to vacation, maybe build a home there. What do you want?"

  Josiah didn't answer, avoiding eye contact.

  "Look," Bryan continued. "When this is all over, we need trusted humans who know how things operate around here. We need people with connections outside their enclaves, we need people who have leadership skills, we need people who can pull people together. It's just like what you're doing now, expect for the good guys. No Hetarek. No Metic Ahai. You can help us rebuild."

  Josiah appeared to consider it. "You'd just do that for me? After everything else?"

  "If you'd help us out we'd help you out. We just need you to give us information from time to time. Not a lot, nothing that's going to compromise you, but things that will let us know what's going on in this region."

  Before the target could object, Jess produced a small Hetarek tablet. "This is a totally normal tablet. It does tablet things. You can use it however you want. But if you tap the bottom left corner three times and start doodling or typing, it will transmit whatever you right or draw to us. It's all through the airways and scrambled so it can't get traced to either of us. You just erase what you wrote and it's gone in your end. It's that easy."

  Josiah kept his hand just barely out of reach. He drew it back rapidly. "If I say no, what, you kill me?"

  Bryan chuckled. "Not at all. We're not here to kill humans. We'd be disappointed but we'd leave you alone. We might try again, see if we can convince you, but we'd be stupid to let you die."

  "What are you worried about?" Jess asked.

  "The Hetarek." He answers as though her question were moronic. "If they suspect anything..."

  "Josiah, we've been over this. They already don't trust you. You're already on borrowed time. This way we can help each other. If you want to stop, just ditch the tablet. We'll take the hint."

  Reluctantly, he took the device and slid it into his cloak. "I have your word, you'll make me a leader when you're here?"

  "You're already a leader, Josiah. We'll just keep it that way."

  Bryan extended a hand, which Josiah weakly shook. The pair of Runners stepped back out into the cold before Objective Banquo, Josiah, could reconsider.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Xander drank the last cup of coffee in the pot. The gritty bitterness kept it from being a pleasant experience, but at least it wasn't luke-warm. Coffee didn't sit around long in their office.

  They split the data the recon flight brought back into three categories. The first had sensor data from the flight itself, including their system-wide sensor ping. One group of analyst used that to count the number and deployment of Hetarek ships. The second set had detailed reports the team completed after each operation and processed intelligence data. Howe transmitted one-page reports via QEC for Colonel Tamaka, story boards so that someone knew what they were doing. The reports sent through the recon flights, however, contained all photos, video, and raw data for Xander and his team. The last group of data, by far the largest, included raw electronic data collected on the ground. That would take a team of five days to cull through ever
y intercepted transmission, every conversation, and every image to find a handful of nuggets that could prove useful.

  The door chimed, alerting the section that the office was momentarily unsecured while the door opened. Lieutenant Colonel Berne came in, grabbed a stale donut, and peered over Xander's shoulder as they watched video of a Scythe landing in a village.

  "What's that?" He asked.

  "We think it may be Othello and Iago coming in under the radar."

  “The Speaker?”

  “Yeah.”

  Berne scanned the image for a few seconds. "Got a minute?"

  They stepped away from the terminal to the small cubical serving as Xander's office. Nothing about it was private or more secure, but at least the small barrier kept him from obsessively checking on all the other displays.

  "The Admiral is worried that we're going to tip our hand by focusing only on Earth. He wants to know if we can do something about that. Is there another target we could put some resources towards?"

  Xander thought for a moment. “The cover story for Aeneas is that we’re going after Proxima.”

  Berne shook his head. “That’s an internal thing. It works for our training but I don’t think it’s going to redirect any Hetarek. Proxima just isn’t a significant target for them.”

  “I get what you’re saying.” Xander replied. "There are a couple we could put some assets on, but we're spreading pretty thin as it is. The Ahai say there's a system with an extraction and refueling complex run almost entirely of Metic Ahai. We could probably put something together on that if we could find it."

  "Free some Metic Ahai, choke off the Hetarek. I like it. Go find it."

  “Roger, sir.”

  Berne stared at the data in front of Xander. “Are you worried about it?”

  “The focus on just one spot?” He asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Xander shook his head. “There’s nothing we can do about it being Earth. But as far as the actual landing point being Seattle? I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “The Hetarek want to get their clan into the Hegemony. Traditionally, they take over a planet, bring it into the Empire, and keep it profitable for a generation in order to earn their way in. They can’t just loot it and be done. They have to cover the whole planet. Our modeling shows that they can’t mass forces significantly in one place without losing control elsewhere. We have to get through orbit no matter what. That’s the choke point. Where we land on the planet doesn’t matter too much. Besides, with Eighty-Two Twenty-Two working down there, there’s going to be significant disruption. They’ll already be degraded. Anything else they bring to bear isn’t going to be reinforcements, it’s going to be replacements.”

  “You’re probably right.” Berne said.

  “That’s why you pay me, sir.” Xander said with a smile.

  The Chief of Operations turned for the door. “Let me know what you need to find that other location.”

  “You really want me to find it?”

  Berne turned and smiled. “No, I want to tell Sykora and you to tell your Ahai friends you’re trying to find it. I don’t give a shit. Just get us on Earth.”

  “Roger, sir.”

  *****

  The Metic Ahai lived predominately on the western side of the mountains, near the once tech-rich cities around Puget Sound. They had more freedom there, living in small clusters of apartment buildings that mostly lacked security barriers to lock them in. The Metic Ahai worked in offices and logistics, not fields. They descended from generations of Ahai captured by the Hetarek centuries before. None remembered real freedom; none of their grandparents remembered real freedom. Even though they maintained some of Ahai culture of community, servitude had been a way of life. They looked like Ahai, and they mostly talked like Ahai, but Bryan found them alien. Just seeing Ahai with their feet on the ground made him slightly uncomfortable. They looked stronger, too, strengthened by walking on a planet rather than stuck in ships running with little artificial gravity to conserve power.

  The Hetarek structure of subordinates followed a very linear equation, as far as the humans could tell with their limited information. The Hetarek figured out how many human servants they needed to extract resources. Then they figured out how many human servants they needed to provide food and other resources to the humans pulling minerals out of the ground, and added them to the equation. The Metic Ahai worked their ingrained administrative skills to ensure all the numbers added up, and the Hetarek set and enforced the policy. The result was that, for every individual human miner stuck in sub-Saharan Africa or Siberia, the equation dictated how many humans worked in a field or in a workshop supporting those in the field, and three Metic Ahai kept the gears turning. The total number of Hetarek was unknown, although Xander Gretter had assured Bryan that, based on long-term observation of schleckt farming and flights out of the hatcheries, the humans outnumbered the Hetarek by more than fifty percent.

  When all the math was done, two things became obvious. First, the Hetarek only controlled the planet because of their ability to fight and control by brute force. The Metic Ahai maintained that control through management. Without them, the system would fall apart. Second, the math that let the Hetarek maintain the planet was extremely sensitive. For that reason, any human who did not have a place in the equation died. It drove the Inventories, which adjusted the numbers of mouths to feed based off of performance. It also meant that, if the Metic Ahai could be counted on to rise against their historic masters, the ratio would swing wildly towards supporting the humans.

  In spite of the warning Anastasia had given in their meeting before she died, Bryan knew he had to make an effort to convert the Metic Ahai to the cause of liberation. This made the risk of driving virtually unprotected through the suburban areas west of the mountains worth it.

  The simple plan involved planting detailed evidence of Hetarek brutality against the Ahai throughout the galaxy and calling on the Metic Ahai support resistance. Jess Kysley had used her growing network of contacts to identify one Metic Ahai, a low-level manager, whom covert partisans overheard making negative comments about the Hetarek. Dressed as maintenance workers, Jess, O Siskind, and Bryan casually drove up to the Metic Ahai compound in Issaquah, just off of the interstate connecting the two sides of the mountains. No one stopped or questioned them. Human laborers frequented such areas to do the hard work neither Hetarek nor Metic Ahai were willing to do. The weather helped, too. The cold and the constant drizzle kept Hetarek overflights to a minimum, as expected. Still, nothing alleviated the tension of being more than an hour’s drive from the nearest help. Loki remained overhead, piercing the clouds with thermal imaging, but it could only tell the small team what they already knew. They were on their own.

  Siskind stopped the truck next to a small logistics building, once a post-office right off of the highway. The location worked well, somewhat isolated by trees from the buildings around it, but the surrounding parking lot with only two entrances left them somewhat vulnerable. Jess would use her limited Ahai language skills to get inside the building to repair a communications system that wasn’t broken. While O worked on the system, actually installing a virus that would deliver the propaganda to any Metic Ahai who connected to the regional administration network, Jess would find excuses to wander around the facility to find the potentially sympathetic Metic Ahai. Bryan’s job was limited. Really, they could do the job without him or send someone else as backup, but Bryan felt strange sending two of his closest teammates on their most dangerous mission without him.

  The first downturn came five minutes after their arrival. Jess disappeared into the back to find the contact, but the apathetic Metic Ahai at the front desk told them that the hook-up they needed for their ersatz repair was outside. This meant the two operators would have to be exposed to the rain and observation, with a very large wall at their back. Bryan sat staring out at the parking lot while O hooked his system in
to the junction box. The process took nearly twenty minutes while O hacked through layers of security.

  To their surprise, Jess reappeared before they were finished. Bryan gave her a concerned look and she waved him off with a subtle hand gesture. “We’re good.”

  “I’m about good, too.” O said, closing up the panel. “They should all get the message pretty quickly.”

  They started putting their tools away when a message popped through a tablet buried in O’s toolkit next to his carbine. The communications sergeant checked it. “Loki says a Komodo just pulled into the front parking lot.”

  "Did we triggers something?" Bryan asked.

  "I don't think so..." O answered tentatively.

  "Everything was normal inside, as far as I can tell." Jess added.

  "We'll see if they even notice us."

  The Komodo pulled around the corner, parking next to the entrance and discharging six Hetarek. Bryan noticed that it included the gunner, leaving the Komodo virtually undefended. Only the driver remained.

  The six headed inside, until one noticed the three humans huddled around the conduit. He growled something at his comrades and broke off, approaching the team while they went inside. He slid his rifle off of his shoulder where it had hung haphazardly, but still held it low in more of a power position than defensive one.

  He shouted something at them, a pattern of low grunts. Bryan understood just enough to know he wanted documentation.

  "Keep working." He muttered.

  He stood up, keeping his hands open at his side. "I'm sorry." He said loudly and slowly. "I don't understand Hetarek."

  The Hetarek raised his rifle, not all the way but enough for Bryan to slow his approach. He resumed yelling at the humans.

  "We're just fixing the relay. We're almost done."

  The warrior barked, and Bryan clearly understood the word for “documentation.

  "Do you want to see my papers? I think I have them here somewhere. I'm so sorry."

  He started patting down his pockets like he was looking for something.