War Angel: part twenty-six

Gina’s mind was reeling from what Jack had told her. What he suggested was insane, of that she was convinced. There were six able-bodied people on the War Angel. Six. What he wanted to do needed a platoon of the EAD’s best soldiers at minimum.

Yet… the question he asked her was one that didn’t easily leave her thoughts. “Why not?” he shrugged.

Why not, indeed?

She continued reading the material he had brought up on the main screen in the bridge. He had asked her to review every bit of data possible on the Omegans’ B-class warships, and to try and determine any weaknesses. She had, rightly, told him that they had surely taken the time to improve those ships over the last few decades, but it hadn’t seemed to worry him.

“Of course they have. Just look at how we’ve improved this old bucket,” he said, patting the hull gently. “But, we didn’t do any restructuring of the insides- just the shields and propulsion. Kinda wish we’d found someone that had been working on a weapons project, thinking about it… anyway, the odds are that the Omegans haven’t done much in the way of changing the B’s basic guts, and that’s what concerns me right now.”

Gina felt a headache coming on. “What does the idiot think, that we’re just going to land on it and walk right in like invited guests?” Her spine suddenly seized. “Oh, hell no. No, that can’t possibly be it.”

Her attention returned to the sketchy-looking blueprints from the computer archives. The going was slow. “Oh, look- they have a dining area. Yay. Wake me when I find the toilet.” Yet as she went along, she found herself admiring the design of the craft. It was simple, basic, direct in how it was put together. The crew quarters were near the launch deck, making it easy for the pilots to reach their crafts quickly. The bridge area was the most fortified; it would take a hit from the RGC to do any serious damage to thebridge from the outside. The B’s engines were spread around the axis of the ship, preventing any single shot from damaging more than one of the four and allowing for easy navigation compensation. And the ship didn’t have a central computer core from what she could tell. Rather than risk a crippling blow taking out too many necessary systems at once, the B’s functions were spread out across the ship.

The plans continued scrolling across the screen for a moment, and then suddenly Gina jumped out of her chair. “That’s it!” she yelled. She dropped back down and moved backwards through the blueprints. The young woman moved her fingers across the screen slowly, tracing a path to what she was looking for. She studied it carefully, taking her time, and then she finally began to allow herself to smile. This was definitely the weakness they were looking for, she thought. And it might just be enough to allow this insane plan of Jack’s to work.

War Angel: part twenty-five

Wilma Gray leaned over her patient, checking his vital signs and looking for signs of distress that she might have missed on her previous examinations. Despite her worries, Ben was getting oxygen, and appeared to have no internal bleeding near the larynx.

“Poor kid. Might have been better off choking to death on his own blood,” she caught herself thinking. “What the hell’s wrong with me? Hours ago I was thinking he was lucky.”

She sat down at her desk and put her feet up. “Wilma darling, you are one complete mass of confusion.”

Taking a deep breath, the doctor grimaced and allowed the words to sink in. What was wrong with her? Would the death of this boy be an act of compassion? Wasn’t that something she was taught that physicians should demonstrate?

“Didn’t I also,” she spoke aloud, “just condone a cold-blooded murder?”

She would never forget the first time she watched someone die, that much was certain. It was as fresh as yesterday in her thoughts, yet nearly thirty years had passed. Her family had taken a trip together, Wilma, her sister Judith, her parents, and her grandfather. They were exploring the hills of New Zealand, wandering up and down hills and mountains of such majesty she could never have imagined. It was, she reminisced, so, so beautiful.

Until they reached Darren Mountains.

The Gray family was very pleased with its progress. Every bit of toil and struggle had been worth it for the chance to take this journey, to explore this area of the world. They were not rich; they worked. But they had enough, and they knew enough to appreciate that their lives were something to appreciate- their family was intact. Through it all, their family was intact.

Wilma sat down on the ground, looking out over the landscape, marveling at the sight of a waterfall crashing hundreds of feet from the top of a cliff, and her curiosity was insatiable. “Daddy,” she asked, “what would it be like to be under the waterfall? Would it be like taking a really big shower?”

The older man plopped down next to his daughter and put his arm around her shoulder and laughed. “No, sweetie. From that height the water would be pretty painful. It’d push you below, too, and you’d drown.”

She pondered that for a moment, wondering what it would feel like to be pressed down beneath the water, unable to reach the surface, feeling your life slipping away from you one bubble at a time. She felt her father’s arm so slack and move away from her, and missing it, she reached for it, only to find that it was very limp. Startled, she looked up at his face, and it had gone blank, awareness gone from his eyes. Wilma screamed, and her mother and grandfather came running. They began to panic, and for the first time, Wilma realized that the danger of death was frighteningly real. Her mother began radioing for help, but an instinct inside of her told Wilma that it was already too late.

“And now here I am,” she thought. “Once again trying to find a way to keep from being pushed down below the water.” There was no chance of staying afloat with Morrison, she told herself. He was going to just let them drown. The Keys kid… he was different. From the moment she had met him, there was something about how he carried himself that set him apart from the other EAD cadets. His family had been in the thick of things in the First Period. He carried around journals and materials from his ancestors, wary of repeating any part of the past. “I think,” she allowed herself, “that he gives us the best chance of survival.”

Survival, after all, was what Wilma Gray was ultimately about.

Richard paced around the engine room, hands clasped behind him, looking very much the mad scientist. Occasionally he would stop, run his hands across his face and then look skyward. It was time to put his life’s work into play, and suddenly there was a lot more at stake than graduating college.

He knew what Jack wanted. Richard had extended the scoop previously as an experiment, and part of the safety setup involved keeping it on a “leash” instead of mooring it to the ship itself. “No need,” Morrison explained, “to have any accidents until it’s time to have one, you understand?”

Park understood.

But whatever Jack had planned, the time for being tentative was past.  It was time to fully attach the scoop and put it to its intended use.

“Faster than light travel. Hot damn!”

The pacing stopped as Richard checked the monitor and observed the progress of the robotic arms. He had spent months writing a proper program for getting them to delicately put the scoop in its permanent place, and the anticipation was almost more than he could handle. If he had screwed any part of the programming up, he knew it would kill his educational career, but now he realized that, if he had screwed any part of the programming up, it would kill everyone on board, including himself. Wherever they were headed, if they weren’t able to put lots of distance between the War Angel and the Omegans, they were toast. Outnumbered, outclassed, and outgunned.

A green light lit up next to the monitor. The robotic arms had completed their task.

Richard moved to a different station and engaged a different computer. One button pushed, and the scoop retracted beneath the safety of the standard engines. Flick- another one pushed, and it moved out from its housing and into place above the engine block. His fingers darted across the screen, and the scoop’s arm maneuvered slightly, changing position. “Okay, so we can move; well, hopefully we can move while we’re in motion. Would have been nice to have a chance to test that. Shit.”

The young engineer continued running through the series of tests he had prepared for the tachyon scoop project, eating up a few more minutes of time. Finally, after multiple tests of each aspect, Richard had a thought that scared him, which was not the emotion he had expected to feel. “All systems are ready. The only thing left to do is fire it up and fly.”

“Shit.”

War Angel: part twenty-four

Jack walked into the mess, his body feeling almost supernaturally calm. His pulse, his heartbeat, had slowed… amused, he pressed two fingers against his neck and began keeping count. “Forty-two… pretty amazing considering what I’m about to attempt,” he thought.

Richard’s briefing materials were still scattered about the floor and counter space, and Keys made short work of scooping them up and spreading them out on the main table. What he needed was here; it was just going to be a matter of time before he had it figured out. He tossed aside the data and pictures of the RGC; “Later,” he thought. Sifting through the next few sheets, he was reminded of the size of the force surrounding Earth, and once again he muttered a curse beneath his breath.

“I had better be right. I had better be damned right.”

Finally, as he reached the bottom of the material, he saw what he was looking for. Pushing everything else aside, he smoothed out the sheet in front of him, taking note of the time code, relative position of the sun’s light, and all of the other celestial objects he could see. Convinced he had everything he needed, he stood quickly, grabbed the data sheet, and exited quickly. Every minute counted now, and he needed to get the main computer servers working on this immediately.

Kate’s eyes flickered open, the light above her causing black spots to roll across her field of vision. “Ahh! Goddammit. Oww. Oww. Oww.”

“Easy,” Sarah said, using the gentlest tone she could produce. “Give your eyes time to adjust.”

Suddenly, Kate bolted upright in bed. “Where is he?!”

Sarah placed her hand her friend’s shoulder. “Easy, Kate. Breathe, take a moment to collect yourself. Everything is okay.”

Stinson’s head snapped towards Sarah, and before she could react, Kate had removed Sarah’s hand from her shoulder. “You’re my friend, Sarah, and I don’t want to damage that relationship. But I just woke up from a forced sleep- we’ll talk about Dr. Gray next- and I believe I came up a bit short in killing the man I tried to strangle. I’d like to get back to it. So don’t patronize me- I’m not in the mood. Just tell me where Ben is.”

Matto took a step backward from Kate’s bed, and the rapidly waking woman let go of her hand. “Okay, just listen, alright? One: Ben is in medlab, and not going anywhere. He can’t even really breathe on his own right now, and he’s being kept asleep. So unless you’re going to murder someone with that has no chance of defending themselves, I think you can stop worrying about him right now.” Sarah paused, waiting for a reaction, but Kate said nothing. “Two: Captain Morrison is dead.”

“What? How?”

“Jack shot him.”

Kate swung her legs up and around, sitting up and to the edge of the bed. “What happened? That why I’m awake? You need me to strangle your boyfriend, too?”

Sarah let out a short giggle. “No. Not yet, at least. No, there’s a long story, and I’ll fill you in on the way. I woke you up because Jack’s captain now, and he says he has a plan. One that requires you.”

“Oh, really?” Kate said, sounding wary.

“Yeah. Plus, we all kind of miss you.”

Stinson broke out laughing, Sarah joining her. “Ahh… good one. Do I have time for a shower? Scratch that- I need one. Clear the cobwebs out, that sort of thing. If we’ve got a mission, and Jack thinks I’m key, I’d better be in top-notch shape for it.”

“We’ve got a little time. Richard’s readying the tachyon scoop. Won’t be ready to go until that happens.”

Kate got up and began stretching. “Okay. Off to the shower I go. You hanging here or coming to help me soap those hard to reach places?”

“Smart ass. I think I’ll stay here- if I did that and things went too far, I might run the risk of strangulation when I least expect it.

“Touché.”

War Angel: part twenty-three

“What have you done?????!!!!!”

Gina leapt out of her chair. “You shot him! You shot him!”

Jack rose from his crouch next to Morrison’s body. “Yes,” was all he could muster. He stared at his former captain, the man lying at his feet, and then moved his gaze to the gun in his hand. The rest of the bridge crew was frozen into place, either terrified of what Jack would do next or simply waiting to see what would happen.

The astrophysicist, though, showed no such hesitation. “You didn’t have to kill him, Jack!” Gina began to shake uncontrollably, and tears of anger and sadness began to slide down her cheeks. “You didn’t have to… to do this!”

His face took on a haunted look, and Jack again eyeballed the gun and its handiwork on the ground before him. He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, and suddenly threw the gun across the bridge and out the door. “Yes,” he had said, teeming with regret, “I did.”

Dr. Gray walked over to the body and began a cursory examination. Jack raised an eyebrow at her, and she said “Just checking to be sure.” Wilma checked for a pulse, tested for signs of breathing, and gave the wounds a cursory glance. Jack’s aim had been true. The first shot would have disrupted Morrison’s nervous system, the second causing massive internal bleeding and organ failure. Keys was efficient, she had to give him that. He’d wanted to kill the man, not make him suffer. And from her examination, her guess was that he had succeeded in both of those goals.

Sarah broke her silence. “Doctor? Your findings?”

“Official medical report: Albert Morrison died in the line of duty,” she said, parsing her words carefully. Gray then nodded gently at Jack.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Gina screamed. “He murdered the captain!” she continued, pointing at Jack.

“No,” Richard said, his voice barely above a whisper, “he saved our lives.”

She shook her head violently. “Nonononono! We could have locked him in his quarters. Like we did with Kate. Or put him in the brig. This ship has a brig!”

“And then what?” Sarah asked.

Gina’s mouth opened to speak, but no words came out.

“Feed him when he’s doing nothing to help keep us alive? Give him the chance to continue trying to push his ideas of giving up on the rest of us until someone breaks?” Sarah paused. “Or do we maximize our own chances of survival? Save the food and water he would have used for ourselves. Keep the ship focused on the single overriding goal we all need to keep our eyes on right now: our survival.”

Sarah’s words hung heavy in the air between the two women, and movement on the bridge came to a standstill. Finally, Gina sat back down and placed her head in hands and began gently sobbing. “I know you’re right, Sarah. In my head, I know you’re right.” He head snapped up. “But murder is never right.”

Their conversation only hours earlier popped back into Sarah’s head. “That isn’t what you said a couple of hours ago,” she said.

Almond’s eyes went dry and her skin turned ashen. Embarrassed and ashamed, she remembered her earlier feelings and wondered for the first and not last time exactly what kind of person she was.

As Sarah’s words sunk in for Gina, she turned her attention to Jack. He was still standing in precisely the same position he’d assumed after Gray delivered her version of what happened for the official record. “Jack?”

Startled from his reverie, Jack’s head twitched and he began trying to pull himself together. “Jack?” she continued. “Where’s your head?” He began to absently rub his temples.

“My head?”

“You’ve done this, Jack,” she said, trying to be gentle. “You’ve done this. So we need to know: what now?”

He nodded. “I’ve done this. Yes.” Suddenly, his body began to spring back to life. He began stretching and twisting, moving his body around, trying to start the endorphins moving in his system. The crew watched him, beginning to wonder if his actions had caused Jack to dissociate from the situation.

They were all new to mutiny, murder, and armageddon, Richard thought. Who could blame him if he had?

Finally, Jack took a few steps away from the body and headed to the front of the bridge. When he was in the position he sought, where he could address them all at once, he began to speak.

“I’m sorry. I am. I’ve never killed anyone before. Never even killed so much as an animal, either. It isn’t who I am. Wasn’t, I guess.” He stopped and looked around, making sure his words were reaching them. “But what Sarah said was right. Even more, though, is my commitment to keeping us all safe and away from those camps. If the Omegans have our fellows in their camps, I can only assume one of two things: they’re already either developing a plan for insurgency or they’re wishing they were dead.”

“The best way we can help them is to stay alive. I did this to help us stay alive.”

Heads nodded in agreement, some more than others. “Captain Morrison was a good and decent man.” Jack’s voice halted. “His death will stain my soul for the rest of my life. If I never point a weapon at another human being, it will still be too soon. The enemy…” He turned his body halfway towards the front of the ship. “The enemy is not us. It’s those bastards who’ve parked their ships in our home’s orbit.”

Jack turned back to face the group. “I want to point my gun at them. Every last damned one of them. And I want to pull the trigger until we never see them again, and we never have to live in fear of them again.”

“I assume then,” Sarah spoke up, “that you have some sort of idea, some sort of plan?”

Keys nodded his head a single time. “I do.”

Richard began to feel the blood moving in his body again. Finally, something sensible was about to happen. Yes, he thought, let’s just put this ugly business behind us. The idea put a little bounce into his spirit. “So what’s the plan, Jack? What do we need to do?”

The Man With the Plan held up his palm in a halting gesture. “Hold up. First things first. Jack walked over to Gina’s station and crouched down next to her so they could see eye to eye. “Gina, I need to know if we can all count on you.”

“Why? If I say no, you’ll shoot me?”

His face registered no surprise; Jack had assumed that might be her response. “No, Gina. I’m not going to shoot you. Like I said- I don’t ever want to point a weapon at another person again. But if you would rather not come along and would prefer to stay here on Pluto, or you’d rather stay here and just sit things out in your quarters, I’d understand.”

Gina felt a rush of skepticism. “If we’re leaving the system, making the run, why would I want to do either of those things?”

Jack didn’t answer. He moved across the bridge to address Richard. “Clover, how soon can you have the tachyon scoop ready for travel?”

Park’s response was quick. “Thirty minutes, max.”

“Excellent. Have at it.” Richard left the bridge, and Jack turned his attention to Sarah and Dr. Gray. “Supersonic, Doctor… what I need from you is a little trickier, maybe.”

Sarah was puzzled. “What do you have in mind, Jack?”

He cleared his throat. “What I have in mind requires a component we’re missing right now… F.A.”

“Oh, hell,” Wilma said, grimacing. “You realize she might not be feeling too charitable when she wakes up, right? Especially since I’m going to have to stimulate her awake.”

“Keenly, doctor,” Jack replied. “But” he said, jabbing a thumb at Sarah, “once she starts hitting consciousness, the first face she sees should be a friendly one. So you exit, Sarah takes over…”

“I catch her up on current events, et cetera et cetera. What if she isn’t happy to see me, either?” Sarah asked.

Jack shrugged. “You might want to take a gun.”

“Fabulous,” Sarah said, her attitude dripping with sarcasm. She took a moment to see if Jack had anything else to say to her, wondering why she thought this might be the time for an emotional declaration, but he made no effort to speak. Giving up, she beckoned to Gray. “Come on, doctor, we have to wake the Pluto Strangler.”

After they were gone, it was only Jack and Gina left on the bridge, and the young woman was visibly nervous.

“You’re shaking,” he commented.

“I honestly have no idea what you want from me, Jack. You’ve murdered a man, taken control of the ship, and everyone seems to be fine with it.” He gave her a blank look and shrugged. She continued. “This is completely insane.”

He coughed, stifling a laugh. “Hime, sanity has suddenly become very overrated. We may well be the last humans alive and free in the entire universe. We’re low on supplies. And you’re right- I killed our captain. Not long after another crew member attempted to choke another one to death.”

“In a universe gone insane, maybe the maddest of the mad are those that survive.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s an impressive amount of crap, Jack. Fine. Count me in for now. What do you need from me?”

Jack began to smile in a way that made her shudder. “Honestly, nothing much different from what Morrison wanted. Your assignment is the helm, and I need you to pilot this old beast.”

“Ohhh-kay,” she said, beginning to worry. “Where exactly are we going?”

“Set your course,” Jack said with barely contained glee, “for Saturn.”

“WHAT?!”

War Angel : part twenty-two

2142- In Orbit Around Pluto

“My finest memory? Running. Definitely running.”

Green trees, a nice field. Those were the defining aspects of the orphanage that Albert Morrison grew up in. The facility, built at the top of a hill, carved ever slightly from a new-growth forest, was home to many children whose parents had died at the hands of the Omegans. While many children still living in the private sector were blessed with technological toys that allowed them to use virtuality to travel the world and participate in games of sport and leisure, the orphans had no such tools. Living as though they were born a century and a half prior, they had only the hill, the trees, and the field.

He loved it.

Afternoons, once schooling was completed, he and the other boys would strip off their shirts and race outside, stopping only to grab a soccer ball or baseball equipment. Simple relics of eras gone by, they didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was enjoying the sunshine and freedom from their domineering teachers. Sides would be chosen, and Morrison counted himself lucky enough that he had enough basic skill in either sport to not be chosen last. That honor always fell upon Griffin… was that his first or last name, Albert wondered. He was a scrawny kid, angry and withdrawn, talentless in any athletic endeavor. Yet if he had stayed inside, he would have been forced to engage in physical activity in the gym, under the watchful eye of Instructor Roberts.

Instructor Roberts. A name that became a synonym for sadism. Grizzled war veteran, loser of a leg and an arm, yet he still plugged away every day, working on his body and building his strength. There was no excuse acceptable to Roberts. He would rub his hand across his bald head for a few seconds before beginning his tirade about how useless you were, about how the enemy would have killed and eaten you because of your weakness, and about how he had not sacrificed his body so that you could wander aimlessly through life, growing fat and happy, doing nothing.

Griffin may have been a terrible athlete, it was true. But he wasn’t dumb, either. Better to suck at sports in front of his classmates, suffer their wrath and scorn, than to listen to Roberts’ reign of terror in the gym.

And yet, Albert thought, it was Roberts’ sacrifice, and seeing his prosthetic leg, that made the sporting so enjoyable. Morrison knew that the old man was, in his own way, right. He had the luxury of being able to run, to jump, to kick, to play. The kids doing it all virtually? The young Morrison pitied them, almost mercilessly. Yes, he had lost his parents, and their absence left a hole in his spirit that he would never be able to fill. But what he had now was an appreciation for life and a feeling like he would have purpose, things that he had to acknowledge might have never occurred had he grown up “normal”.

“I wonder why I’m thinking about this now?” he suddenly wondered, and struggled to open his eyes. As they cracked slightly open, he saw the form of Jack Keys towering over him, energy pistol in hand.

Keys knelt down next to him, a look of pained sorrow on his face. “I’m truly sorry, Captain. I wish it hadn’t come to this,” he said.

The crew of the War Angel watched as Morrison, whether by design or by muscular twitch, suddenly gave a contented smile and his eyes took on a bright, dreamlike quality. He remained that way for a minute or so, and then that inner light began to dim. As his eyes turned to glass, Keys brushed his palm across the older officer’s face and closed them for good. Albert Morrison was gone from the world, one he had never quite made, but one in which he was always almost good enough.

War Angel: part twenty-one

From the Journal of Steven Keys- August 30, 2018

They presented us a plan today. Just outside of Palm Springs, an Omegan ship has landed and is engaged in some unknown experiments. To our advantage, it’s a smaller ship. Intel suggests that there are about a dozen enemy troops on the ground.

For us, it’s a strategic target. Palm Springs sits on top of a bountiful aquifer. If we could wrest control of it for even a short while, we could restock our fresh water supply for months.

Can’t believe I used to piss and moan about the proliferation of bottled waters and how much they were hurting the environment. Now I’d pretty much kill someone for a bottle of Perrier.

I volunteered to go. A couple of days ago, a guy named Mike taught me how to use an RPG launcher. Rocket-propelled grenades! My twelve-year old self would have eaten it up with a spoon, back before I put down the joystick and became a pacifist. Ha! It turned out that I have a knack for it, and a pretty decent aim. And if the shit hits the fan (we can always hope it won’t) we’ll need someone to cover our exit.

When I told her I was going, Nadine freaked out. Over the last week I thought she had actually been getting better. She’s slept a bit, looked a little more peaceful as she walks around. But this really set her off. At first I begged her to come with us; I kind of thought that seeing this in action, seeing us take down those… well, I think they’re maroon, but some say purple… sons of bitches taken down would do her some good. I think that when people see that the damned things can be killed, that we can start fighting back, the terror will diminish and we will have a chance of taking back our planet.

Nadine, however, is having none of that.

We leave for Palm Springs under the cover of darkness in two days. Crossing my fingers that by the time we leave, she’s at least okay with me going.

From the Journal of Steven Keys- September 1, 2018

It was the most exhilarating moment of my life, bar none.

First of all: holy shit! I saw aliens! In fucking person, right in front of my eyes! This whole ordeal, all the things we’re going through, there’s been an element of the unreal about it, seeing it all develop on T V and on the internet and in pictures. But as we crept into Palm Springs this morning, it all changed. There, sitting in the shadows, was an honest-to-God spaceship. With aliens!

Two of them were standing guard outside the ship. There was very little activity, which leads me to believe that the Omegans must observe some sort of nocturnal cycle of their own. Interesting. Infrared scanners showed eight other bodies inside the ship, leaving two unaccounted for.

A few of our guys, led by Ed, headed for the water treatment plant. Best guess was that the other two were inside there doing something, so they had to be careful. It was Ed’s idea to get even more basic when arming his crew: someone had located a blacksmith outside of Flag, a guy that made his stuff and sold it at ren faires across the U.S. The guy gladly gave up broadswords, katanas, and a couple of maces. So those guys were packing, the only downside being that they needed to get close to use them. We had no distance weapons aside from the RPGs, and we didn’t want to use those in the plant for fear of destroying the water supply we had come all that way for.

Anyway, I’ll get full details from Ed later, but whatever they did worked! We got a ping on the walkie that all was clear inside, so we made our move. Mike was the bait; he walked about a quarter of a mile away from the ship and then began singing loudly, acting drunk., bobbling and weaving his way towards their ship. The two guards took notice, and sensing a potential threat, they unholstered their weapons and began approaching him, shouting at him to stop in halting English. He did, and just as it looked like he was going to take a laser blast in the face, two shots rang out from the darkness and Omegan brain matter went splattering across Mike’s shirt.

Disgusting, by the way. And pretty damned smelly, too.

Ed’s guys wandered out of the shadows, objective one completed: Omegan weaponry captured and tested to see if humans could use it effectively. They dragged the bodies back towards the ship and placed them near where they had been before.

Next up came a couple of guys that Mike knew. They were in the Corps of Engineers, and the hope was that our destruction would remain uninvestigated if what happened seemed like an accident. Those guys got themselves up to the ship and started looking over it, especially the engines. I couldn’t tell exactly what they were doing, but after a few animated moments, one took out a toolkit and started prying open something near the engine. From what I could tell, it looked like they cut some wiring. One of them shot some pictures with a small camera, then they retreated back towards the water plant, beckoning for Ed and his guys to join them in prepping water to take back. Once they were inside, Mike pointed at me, pointed towards a location directly behind the ship’s engines, and motioned for me to move.

I moved as quickly as I could while still being quiet, winding up about 150 yards from the Omegans. The RPG was slung over my back, making it easy to pull off and aim at my target. Thinking about it now, I understand what they did; they caused what would hopefully be seen as a normal malfunction that could lead problems. If the ship was online with Omegan command, they would expect the crew to deal with it in the morning. If they had some sort of “black box”, it would show that the explosion was natural. We’d be home-free if and until they discovered the bodies of their fellows inside the plant. No time to drag those bodies out. We needed to finish it fast, before any of the others woke up.

What I did felt so simple, so natural, that it should probably frighten me. I locked on to the heat source of the engines, flicked the switch to put the launcher in “go” position, and pulled the trigger. I barely even thought about it, I just did it.

The explosion was incredible! It lit up the night sky for almost a minute. The ship scattered into thousands of pieces, along with the creatures that were inside of it.

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. Pardon me while I go into shock over the fact that I BLEW UP AN ALIEN SPACESHIP. I am through the looking glass here. Wow. Wow.

We got the water loaded in our trucks pretty quickly at that point, and got out of there. The Omegans were surely going to get another ship on scene pretty fast, and we didn’t want to be there for that!

Now we’re almost home. People have been high-fiving me, back-slapping me, congratulating me… it’s pretty surreal. In my life, I have never seen being a killer as something honorable or something to celebrate. Yet I cannot help but admit that I do feel like I accomplished something great today, something important. We demonstrated that the human spirit lives on and that we will fight. Knowing this, I can only hope that others take our lead and start their own battles.

Being a terrorist? Yeah, I think I can live with it.

Can’t wait to get home and see Nadine and tell her all about it. Should perk her up quite a bit to learn that we pulled it off, and did it with no casualties. Huzzah!

From the Journal of Steven Keys- September 2, 2018

I found Nadine’s body hanging from our favorite tree. She’s gone. I don’t know what to do.

From the Journal of Steven Keys- September 4, 2018

I buried Nadine this morning. Ed helped me dig a grave, and a few of the others came along for support. I spoke a bit, delivering what passes for a eulogy, but I couldn’t begin to tell you what I said. I’ve been on autopilot for the past 48 hours. I do remember what Ed said, though, after we finished piling the dirt on her. He told me to be strong, that I should remember that not everyone was going to be able to survive in the Horrific New World. The question is: can I? Without the one person left who gave me meaning?

War Angel: part twenty

From the Journal of Steven Keys- August 19, 2018

I’ve spent years bemoaning the state of humanity. Ridiculous wars fought over small territories. Even more ridiculous wars predicated upon the belief that one side’s religion was better than the other side’s religion. Hunger running rampant. Disease spreading unchecked through impoverished nations. Never missed a chance to pick up a sign and join a march to try and save the world. I’ve always been willing to pit my lefty credentials against anyone else’s.

Hell, I’m a college professor. WAS a college professor. In linguistics! God knows that the righties had no use for people like me.

Until today. Today, all of those people I’ve considered war mongers and hate bringers have asked me to pick up a gun and fight. And I didn’t even hesitate in saying yes.

The Omegans have been dispersing themselves throughout most major cities left across the planet. From the intelligence that’s leaked back to us here in Flagstaff, they’re pretty entrenched. But our military leaders seem to think that they’ve done us a favor along the way.

After they landed last month, they began constructing those weird machines I mentioned before. Well, it’s become clear what they are. Lots of folks had believed they were bombs or some other doomsday device. Instead, they’ve proven to be some sort of massive atmospheric scrubber system. They’ve been filtering and repairing the atmosphere! And rumors suggest that they dropped a few in the oceans, too. The air is breathable again! And once rains kick in, the freshwater supplies should start being useable again!

I, of course, thought this was great news, but Ed- The Human Bummer, as I like to call him- swears differently. “This is the worst possible news,” he swore to me. “This means that they’ve done this before. Otherwise, why carry that equipment from fuck knows where across the galaxy? Why do it at all, unless you need the water for something, and you need the air cleaned for a particular purpose?”

“It would have been easiest to just let us die out and take over from there.”

The more I think about it, the more I realize he’s probably right. Goddammit, Ed. Stop being right.

Anyway, at today’s briefing, we had a visit from a military commander in from a base somewhere in the Nevada desert. He explained that, with the atmosphere becoming safe again, we (humanity, I presume) would begin launching counter-offensives soon. They would not, however, be on a massive scale. Nukes had been ruled out, the prevailing thought being that scorching the planet and leaving nothing for ourselves would defeat the purpose. Mid-range stuff was also a shaky approach- the Omegans looked to be solid in the armor department. A few brave souls had tried, but even a 50 caliber bullet had proved unable to penetrate their defenses. A couple of battleships had launched missiles against their space cruisers, but the impacts caused just enough damage to annoy the Omegans into destroying their source.

What this man explained to us was very simple: we were going to have to revert to the basics.

Guerilla warfare. Sneak attacks. Tactics banned by every civilized nation on the planet. His words sent a chill up my spine: “Each and every one of you, no matter what you did in your lives a month ago, is something new now. You are all terrorists.”

We are all terrorists. The last seventeen years in the U.S., we have lived in constant fear of anyone using that word to describe themselves. Presidential speeches have demonized terrorists as the ultimate thing that should scare us into submission. And now we were being asked to embrace the methods and ideals behind the boogeyman.

Nadine did not handle the suggestion well. Not at all.

She seems to be growing more fragile every day. Every night, she wakes up screaming out for her parents. Some of the people we’re sharing quarters with have gotten extremely angry about it, but I can see sympathy and pity in the eyes of others. Their own dreams are obviously littered with the corpses of their loved ones; it’s just been a quieter journey.

I talked to her tonight about asking the doc for sleeping pills or antidepressants but she just shook me off and rolled away from me. Hopefully, after she’s had some time to think about the things we heard today, she’ll perk up a bit. I certainly did.