The Oppressed Page 19

  Berne smiled approvingly. "Is that long enough?"

  Xander shrugged. "I think it could be."

  "I'll tell the boss." The Chief of Operations stepped into the inner circle and whispered into the commanders ear.

  The commander held up a finger, stopping the briefing in progress. "Okay. Thanks. We need cut this short. I need the floor with the Two, Fires, and the lawyer."

  The rest of the staff shuffled out, some lingering just enough to see what was about to happen.

  Sergeant Tennison switched the main screens away from the briefing graphics to the view of the Hetarek vehicle traveling through the high desert.

  "Ma’am, you're looking at Objective Claudius, the Hetarek regional director for the Pacific Northwest." Xander began.

  "The guy who made all those captives starve to death last year."

  "Correct. He's headed down a main route west from Spokane. There's nothing along that route between this and the mountains, so we assess he's heading to the pass for the meeting with Objective Hamlet we briefed you on last night."

  “With the information from Banquo?” She asked. “We still don’t know where that meeting is, do we?”

  Xander shook his head. “No, ma’am.”

  “Let’s not give up on that one yet. I’d love a deer tag with Kevak Akkad’s name on it.”

  “We’re still following up and tracking with Banquo, but he probably won’t know until the meeting happens. Even then it’ll be in the middle of the city where it’s much harder to hit.” His assessment, though pessimistic, was the truth. He owed her that much.

  Colonel Tamaka nodded in acceptance. "How do we know it's Claudius?"

  Tennison spoke up. "Ma’am, we've been tracking him and saw a Hetarek we believe to be him getting in that truck."

  "With no escort? Why isn't he flying?" Berne asked.

  "I can't speak to the escort sir, although we have seen this behavior before from them. The weather around the sound is particularly bad today. We’re surprised Hamlet is coming in at all and we don’t know how he’s coming in."

  The commander turned to her Chief of Operations. "Where's Two-Two?"

  A map appeared on the screen next to the image of the truck. It panned until it found a blue marker far to the southwest. "There a ways away. They might be able to make it if the weather wasn't so shitty..."

  "Got it.” The Colonel interrupted. “Do we want to fire Loki?"

  The satellite they used to watch the team did come armed with a small number of inertial projectiles, but for many reasons, they were reluctant to use it. Firing the weapon would reveal its existence and almost certainly lead to the Hetarek destroying it. While Thunder carried spare observation satellites, none were large enough to be armed. Loki was the closest thing to close air support available to the team, and they didn't want to lose it just yet.

  "I don't think so." Xander replied.

  Sergeant First Class Arush, the Fires NCO responsible for knowing all the available weapons capabilities, spoke up from his station. "Sir, I wouldn't want to use Loki for this anyway. It's not designed to hit a target that small moving that fast. Even if it did hit it there wouldn't be a guarantee it would destroy that truck. But Thunder has four Slingshots onboard."

  "That won't give them away?" Berne asked.

  "They drop it out of their cargo bay like on resupplies. They release it from high orbit and it won't go active until it hits atmo. There isn't a way to backtrack it."

  "But it will expose the capability." Xander added.

  "It can take about forty to ninety minutes to hit the target from launch though, depending on release point and target location."

  Tennison had been typing furiously into her computer, messaging Thunder quantum messaging computer. "Sir, Thunder reports they can have one Slingshot prepped in ten minutes, release in about twenty five minutes."

  "That's close.” Berne commented.

  “Tell them to start the work up. We can shut it down if we have to." The commander ordered.

  "What happens if the truck gets into a populated area?" The lawyer asked. "If it ends up in or near a work camp, a Slingshot could kill a bunch of humans or Metic Ahai."

  "It's under guidance until the last thirty seconds, sir." The Fires NCO said. "We can send it to the mountains if we have to."

  The lawyer shrugged. "Good enough for me."

  "Major Gretter,” Colonel Tamaka directed. “Find out for me what's so important that he's risking driving in the open alone right now."

  Xander looked at Tennison, who nodded and disappeared behind the hatch.

  "You might want to let Two-Two know what we're doing." Berne suggested.

  Popov put in a call to the team.

  "Good idea. There's probably going to be some retribution. It might be hard for them to get home." Xander commented.

  "Serpent Eight-Two, Beast Two-Two, go ahead." Howe’s voice came in over the radio.

  "Beast Two-Two, be advised we will be conducting a Slingshot strike on Objective Claudius in the vicinity of Vantage in six zero mikes."

  "Ten bucks Bryan says he can do it himself." Berne challenged.

  "No bet." Xander answered.

  "Serpent Eight-Two, Beast Two-Two, we can intercept the target at the pass in time."

  Popov looked back at Berne and the commander. Both shook their heads. He turned back and relayed the denial as diplomatically as possible.

  "It's the right call. It's too rushed, in the rain, with snow on the passes." Xander said more to himself.

  "Thanks for not second guessing me, asshole." Berne answered, at least somewhat good humoredly.

  "Sir, where do we want to hit him? It'll determine the timing." The Fires NCO asked.

  "There's a spot just before the Columbia River crossing that's pretty rocky with some hills. Is that good?" Xander suggested.

  The screen zoomed in on a stretch of neglected highway snaking between hilltops just before one of the few bridges still spanning the river.

  "That should focus the blast pretty good, sir. Better than the fields he's in now."

  "Can we hit it in time?" Tamaka asked.

  "Yes, ma’am, provided he doesn't need to make a pit stop beforehand."

  "He went before he left." Tennison had reappeared. "We have that information for you, ma’am. Reporting indicates that the command called him to Seattle because of the slow down in schleckt shipments. They are upset that he missed his deadline last week."

  "Because we blew it up." Berne said.

  "It doesn't say that, but yes, sir."

  "He's on our list because of the rationing, so this is a revenge hit?" The commander asked.

  "Yep." Blurted CHOPS.

  "Removing him would significantly disrupt the Hetarek ability to maintain supply routes and control in the region." Xander clarified.

  "Where is Thunder?"

  "Ten minutes to release."

  They watched the screens. The scene was boring. The Hetarek driving the truck had only a few minutes left to live. In moments like that, Xander felt omnipotent. The small cluster of men, light years away, had determined that the individual they had watched for months had seen his last sunset. The target had no idea the sentence had been issued and death warrant signed.

  While they waited, the lawyer flipped through a magazine on his tablet. The fires NCO stepped away from his desk to grab a small pile of cookies from the communal table in the back of the center. Berne played a card game on his computer. Everyone filled the time casually; they might as well have been waiting for an appointment. The Hetarek target moved on.

  "Thunder approaching release point." There was nothing to see on the screens since the ship was in orbit out of view, but everyone looked up anyway.

  "Engagement approved. Give ‘em my initials." Colonel Tamaka proclaimed.

  Arush typed furiously.

  "Thunder reports bombs away and tracking. Impact in two-five mikes."r />
  "Can someone go to the dining facility and grab us some to-go plates?" Berne asked. "We're going to be stuck here and lunch is almost over."

  One of the junior soldiers started taking food orders. Everyone else went back to wasting time.

  The minutes ticked by slowly. The truck drove on. The bomb continued to fall. Through the computer, Thunder provided updates in the bomb’s progress. It broke low orbit. It hit atmosphere. It emerged from black out. It adjusted trajectory.

  "Splash thirty seconds." The Fires NCO finally announced.

  The truck rounded a bend in the highway, a steep, rocky bluff on one side, as predicted. The OPCEN became very quiet.

  The bomb appeared onscreen for a fraction of a second, a white-hot streak from the bottom left corner towards the center. There was no sound. The screen blossomed into bright white. Nuanced shades of gray and black resolved as the fireball dissipated.

  People clapped and cheered. Arush NCO didn't look up from his own screen covered in text. "Thunder reports splash on target."

  The image on the screen cleared up as fire, smoke, and debris settled. A jagged crater, at least ten meters across, completely bisected the highway. A fan of glowing shrapnel still flying through the air spread out from the impact site down the hill.

  "So that's what happens when you hurl five thousand pounds of explosives at a couple thousand miles an hour." Someone commented.

  "Did it vaporize the truck? I don't see it." Berne asked.

  The fires NCO shook his head, speaking through a mouthful of cookies. "I'd be surprised if it did. It probably got blown clear of the crater, though."

  On instruction, the satellite zoomed out. They found the truck, on its side and flickering with fire, a few dozen meters from the impact down the hill. From the debris pattern, it must have bounced and rolled to a stop. The frame had been so distorted they would not have recognized it had they not watched a few tons of armored vehicle get tossed like a toy.

  They stared the hulk for a few minutes to see any signs of life. To their surprise something, probably a door, fell away from the truck and a figure rolled out.

  "Holy shit. Did he survive?" The Fires NCO blurted.

  "Stranger things have happened." Berne said.

  The satellite zoomed back in enough to make out some of the details.

  "I only count three limbs." Xander announced. "He's pretty messed up." Sure enough, the Hetarek now crawling away lacked his upper limbs and his middle left leg. The end of the appendages were nothing more than blurs. With effort the figure shoved itself forward along the ground, exerting its energy in short bursts followed by a few minutes rest.

  Two soldiers reentered the OPCEN carrying trays of food. Nearly everyone swarmed him, including the S2, who hunted for the club sandwich and soda he'd requested. He found them, took a seat next to CHOPS, and started eating.

  The Hetarek had developed a new strategy. He rolled down the hill, nearly uncontrollably, on his side. He'd stop, his body heaving in pain and catching his breath, lie for a few moments, and try to shove himself with his remaining legs back into a roll.

  "Where's he going?" Berne asked.

  "Tennison?" Xander asked.

  The camera zoomed out. "Sir, all I see is the river. But he's got a ways to go. There’s a Hetarek checkpoint on the other side but he’s never going to make it."

  "Can we hit him again?" Amersvoort asked. A crowd had gathered behind them.

  "Not really." Arush replied. “It'd take another hour even if Thunder was ready and in position."

  "For the record," the lawyer said not even looking up from his magazine. "I'd say he's hors d’ combat and we can't reengage."

  "He can suffer. I'm not anxious to ease it." Berne replied.

  It took another half hour for the Hetarek to stop struggling. In the meantime, someone made an old fashioned hunting tag, complete with a blurry photo of the Hetarek stolen from the satellite feed. They presented it to Berne, who hung it on the wall. Over the following hour, they kept checking in as the body cooled. Eventually, a Hetarek response team showed up from across the river to collect the pieces.

  *****

  Being surrounded by the dead of his own species long ago ceased to bother him. The first human he had seen actually born on Earth was a mutilated corpse a dozen meters from where he had landed immediately after the invasion. The Speaker had marveled that he was finally on his ancestral planet, something generations of shipwrecked family members had fantasized about back on the Twins. Then he saw what the Hetarek had done to it. In the decades since, he had accepted that all the humans on the planet would likely die while the Hetarek tried the squeeze the life out of Earth. Although he knew the Hetarek’s motive, he neither understood it nor cared that he didn’t understand it. What difference does motive make to the murdered, anyway?

  So he watched humans die en mass. He suffered through the Culling in those early years, believing that these humans would die either screaming or whimpering anyway. Perhaps, he rationalized, he could prolong their lives in circumstances slightly better than death. He stood by during the Inventories and tried to pick the most feeble to die. He trained other human speakers to temper the violence when possible and to placate the Hetarek. He told himself he helped humans live until it was time for them to die.

  He had no misgivings. His intent in taking his position decades ago, as a young man, had been far from altruistic. Being able to understand a few sounds the Hetarek made, and his ability to spread a message, gave him a choice: he could work for the Hetarek or he could be enslaved before being killed. He chose the former.

  But his armor of selfishness only lasted so long. He became calloused to the Hetarek and their methods. He resigned himself and his species to fate.

  What he saw before him at the moment, though, nearly broke through his stoicism.

  They had cleansed the town. Then, they made a show of it. The town was - had been - no more than a stop over for people heading across the mountains between the coast and the farmland. Then, according to the few Hetarek warriors who observed the event, fire came from the sky.

  They saw the bright flash and a streak through the air, miles away across the river. The guards had been told to expect Dund Kamed as he raced his way towards the coast for the Kevak’s surprise inspection of the region that found itself in open rebellion. The witnesses said the ground shook far from the mountains’ edge, and most believed they had experienced a minor earthquake. But the guards on the one bridge across the river knew that the power came from above the Earth, not within it. Across the river, he could see the impact crater chiseled out of stone along the edge of the road. That Kamed had survived the initial blast was far from a miracle. The witnesses said they found his personal vehicle mangled so horribly they couldn’t recognize it. When they found his body, they reported that they located “most of it,” a trail of blood and flesh dragging along the ground for meters from where he had landed in the moments after the blast.

  Divrack’s anger had been aimed at Kamed for his stupidity. The guards’ anger had been focused on the nearest humans.

  The victims were stacked together so that every face still recognizable could be recognized. The body parts were piled on top of three Komodos, ready to be tossed out along the schleckt fields at regular intervals. The limbs were adult and small. The Hetarek had no sentimentality, and struggled with the concept of youth, given their rapid maturation and high clutch rates. They had not butchered the children to make a point, they had incidentally butchered children when they butchered everyone else. They accidentally instilled a horror humans had not seen since the first weeks of the occupation.

  They knew who was responsible. Still, they eliminated hundreds of humans over the death of one Hetarek.

  The Hetarek wore no boots, their taloned feet squishing through the blood-created mud. The smell, which he had smelled so many times before, snaked through his nose and dove into his lungs until every breath ca
me shallow and ragged. The cold bit at his eyes and stung his nose. His chest felt too tight to vomit. Instead, he focused his energy on trying not to hyperventilate as he walked behind his Hetarek masters.

  The Hetarek without personal heaters bounced and vibrated on their limbs to stay warm, their speech and actions noticeably slower.

  What do we lose with this enclave? Kevak Akkad asked, completely indifferent as to how the enclave became lost.

  They maintained the roads and bridge in this region, Kevak. Divrak replied. They also supported the guards that maintain the pass.

  So your guards killed the humans they relied on?

  Kahil gave his version of a chuckle. Yes, Kevak. It appears so.

  I suppose we shall see how well they can take care of themselves. Akkad mused. Do we know where this weapon came from?

  No, Kevak. Kahil admitted. We were able to trace indicators of what was believed to be a meteorite after we learned what happened. Of course it was not a meteorite. From what we can tell, the weapon entered the atmosphere from orbit, but we cannot find anything other than space junk at that location.

  How did they know where Dund Kamed was?

  We do not know, Kevak.

  Kevak Akkad whipped his head around with such force and so little warning that, for an instant, his entourage worried that he had been shot in the head.

  You will find out, Darga Kahil. He snarled. You will find out how they keep killing us. You will gain control of your so-called warriors. He shifted his gaze to his Minister of Indigenous Affairs. You will stay here, Khuu Divrack, with Darga Kahil, until the human situation is under control. We will make all Ahai follow us once again. We have forgotten how the Hetarek wage war. We will remember. When the humans arrive in force, they will remember.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  All three screens showed different perspectives on the same event. The first showed the gray-scale overhead from Loki depicting a road winding its way through the valley towards a small cluster of buildings. The second and third each had the nausea-inducing, shifting point of view of both Taylor and Perkins, staring through the ruins of some house. Around them, six of their freshly trained locals, all smiling too broadly and shifting back and forth, gripping their scavenged weapons too tightly.