Conscripts, p.14
Conscripts, page 14
Jacob was given these photos for the ceremony, and several in the group helped add their friends’ names on the bottoms and put them up on the back wall of the rec area.
When ready, the entire group gathered around and those that had known them best stood and shared what they could.
“Her name was Carla Strum and she was from Vermont,” a Saje started. “She had married her high school sweetheart … but I can’t remember his name … and she had a baby girl named Venessa.” Her voice caught as she finished, and softly she began to cry.
“The last time I saw Carla we were surrounded by Rha’ket’gar, her helmet had fallen off, and then we were separated,” another friend solemnly continued. “I could tell it was her by her curly red hair.”
… And so it went for all six of the fallen. When they had finished, Jacob stood nervously and felt a huge sense of relief when Kent and Nicole rose to join him.
“These are our friends, our people … those of us who have fallen and will never return home to their families … to their lives…,” he began. “We must pledge that, together, we will work to help each other make it home and to tell people what happened here … we must tell them how they lived among us and how our friends died. We will never forget them,” Jacob said, his voice rising. “We will honor them, and we will do what we have to do … we must endure the trials before us and survive the battles forced upon us, so that we can make it home alive …”
“ENDURE, SURVIVE, MAKE IT HOME ALIVE!” The Saje started to chant the phrase, slowly at first, but the words quickly gained speed and volume as many—with tears in their eyes—stared grimly at the wall.
The handlers in the back of the room nervously moved their hands to their wrists, readying themselves to use the Torch if necessary.
But slowly the chanting died down and the group dispersed, settling themselves in the dining room or their bedrooms. The rest of the evening was light on conversation, most too preoccupied with thoughts of the ceremony, of home, or what may happen tomorrow to do much talking.
2
The next morning when Jacob entered the dining room, he found the mood remained somber. People talked in quiet tones or sat lost in their own thoughts. He filled up his plate and sat down next to Nicole, who gave him an uncharacteristic side hug and a slight smile.
Jenna joined them. “How’s it going, Jenna?”
She gave him a weak little smile. “I’m okay,” she said as she sat down.
As Jacob looked around the room, he could feel the nervousness in the air, its static charge clinging to those around him. The fear was evident. But there was something else there as well … something he hadn’t seen there before … something he hadn’t seen in general for a long time. Something had changed overnight. Maybe it’d been there all along, hiding just beneath the surface.
Underneath the nervousness, the anger and fear was a cold hard line of determination written on every face.
3
The handlers arrived just moments later, telling them it was time to gear up. This time, there was no hesitation. With a quick look and nod, they each got up and headed quietly to the equipment room. Once they were geared up, they returned to the main room and loaded into the transportation container through the door next to the rec room.
They had barely secured their gear before the doors closed shut, sealing them into the dimly lit area. The floor of the container began to rumble beneath them, and Jacob could feel his weight shift, much different from an airplane take-off, as the sky crane lifted straight up into the air.
There was a smattering of jokes and comments, but for the most part people were quiet. Jacob wasn’t sure he’d ever get use to the feeling, but many of the others seemed less concerned this time around.
Queasiness hit his stomach, a combination of both motion sickness and nerves. He pinched his brows together, squeezed his eyes shut and then relaxed—letting them open—, exhaling slowly as he did. When he looked up, he saw Nicole watching him. She seemed completely unfazed by the motion. Unceremoniously, she stuck out her tongue and crossed her eyes with a smirk. In return, he managed to give her a quick, forced smile, before he returned his gaze back to the floor, which seemed to lessen the effects. I will not be sick, he told himself, I will not be sick. He continued this chant as he focused on his breathing … slowly in and out.
As time passed, the symptoms gradually calmed, enough for him to lift his eyes from his feet. This time, he found Nicole with her head resting against the bulkhead, apparently sound asleep, her hair half-hiding her face like an eye mask. He started to shake his head in wonder—how she could actually fall asleep was beyond him—but he quickly stopped when a wave of motion sickness returned. And he was forced to drop his head again.
Starring at a mark on the floor, his thoughts slowly drifted back to Earth, thinking once more of the women he loved. He wondered what they would be doing if he was home right now. It was hard to believe he’d been gone for nearly five months—by estimates—and almost impossible to imagine what they’d been through. As his mind replayed simple memories—the feeling of her head on his shoulder, the faint smell of her perfume, the warmth of her skin—he felt a rush of tears that quickly brought him back to reality. He faked a cough to hide his emotion, hoping no one had noticed.
A voice popped into his ear piece. “You alright, mate?” he heard someone ask. It was Nicole, her voice tinged with a hint of concern. It scared him so thoroughly that he involuntarily yanked his head sideways, slamming his helmet into the beam next to his seat.
“Holy crap, you scared me!” Jacob said, a little more forceful than he needed to. “I think I need to turn that volume down a bit.”
“Well at least the comms seem to work,” she said, a slightly hurt look on her face. He knew he should apologize, but he didn’t like her intruding into his memories like that, whether she meant to or not.
“Sorry I yelled,” he said quietly into his mic.
She smiled at him from across the aisle. “No worries, mate. I think we’re getting ready to land.”
The jostling and rumbling increased, and moments later they felt a large bump and then all was still. The doors to the container slid open, and the Saje gathered their gear and exited, blinking rapidly as their eyes adjusted to the bright, natural light of the day.
They found themselves on the outskirts of what appeared to be a large Khonian military encampment. Jacob had the Saje gather together in formation, and the handlers marched them around the right side of the camp toward five metallic-looking pop-up tents. They were arranged in a small clearing about a hundred yards away from the nearest tent in the base.
As they walked by the encampment, hundreds of Khonian military personnel came to its edge to watch.
They could hear many of the gathered soldiers yell comments as they passed by. “Would you get a look at these brutes?” … “Look, the Earthlings have come to save us.” That comment brought on a smattering of laughter among the soldiers.
Jacob—who was walking in front of the group—turned and yelled out: “Look straight ahead, don’t give them the satisfaction.” (Not wanting the Khonians to understand, he took the risk to say it in English.)
But when they walked by another group of Khonian soldiers, he failed to follow his own instructions. There were four of them, who’d been struggling to load a crate into a transport. They’d stopped to watch the Earthlings, and although Jacob couldn’t hear their comments, from the looks on their faces he knew they weren’t positive.
When the Saje approached the transport, Jacob stepped out of formation; he looked right at them as he walked over, picked up the crate, and put it into the bay of the transport. Without a word he turned and fell back in step at the formation’s lead, but not before seeing the stunned looks on the Khonians’ faces. As he rejoined his group, he couldn’t help but grin.…
4
The tents they were assigned to stay in felt like metal sardine tins. Their tops and bottoms were made of a hard material that, when separated, were enclosed by metallic cloth; when closed it made them easy to stack for transport. Inside, the contents were sparse, just two long rows of cots with enough space to walk between. As Jacob dropped his kit onto a cot, he wondered about the sleeping arrangements. Maybe they should separate the males and females so they could have a smidge of privacy.
“Dibs on this one,” Nicole said as she walked up behind him, tossing her bag down on the cot next to his and erasing that possibility.
Surprised, he paused in his unpacking. He had thought that maybe all of the females would have wanted to be together, but it didn’t seem to be the case. Or at least not the case for Nicole, whom he was learning wasn’t quite like any of the other girls he knew, here or back on Earth.
I guess it doesn’t really matter, he thought. Better to have the Council bunk together and the units and their commanders could do the same. It’s not like this was some kind of summer camp anyway.
After settling in, they were told that lunch was available in the fourth tent. The mess tent looked just like the dining room back at the program facility. Even the food was the same.
As Jacob was finishing his meal, Handler Dourst entered through the tent flap and told him he had been summoned. He set down his utensils and with a quick roll of his eyes—causing a few smirks from those around him—he wiped his mouth with his napkin and stood up to put his plate away. With a final glance at his friends, he followed Dourst out and crossed the distance between their tents and those of the Khonians.
As they walked through the rows of their encampment, he endured the uncomfortable stares and insults from the Khonian soldiers. It would have been easier if he couldn’t have understood their language, and he wondered if they knew he could.
Finally, they reached the center of the encampment. It consisted of several connected tents that were used as the command tent. Next to the entrance, three poles had been sunk into the ground each displaying a different emblem-covered banner, stretched taunt across it. Nearby, a short, knobby tree branch had been pushed into the ground and on it someone had hung a hand-painted banner of a bloody Earth symbol, apparently a joke to represent the Saje.
He heard the din of voices as he was ushered into the tent, and as his eyes adjusted to the different light the voices quickly died out. He found himself standing in a now silent room filled with 20 or so occupants, staring at him with a range of looks from curiosity, to annoyance, to downright disdain.
Commander Sauk was in front of the group, standing next to an older-looking man. He quickly pointed to a chair for Jacob to sit, a good distance from the other officers.
The older man glanced at Sauk, then resumed a presentation he must have just started. “Right then … as I was saying, I am Prime Commander Truvey of the Unified Ground Combat Task Force, and I’m going to start by getting everyone up to speed on the latest intel …”
He explained how The Ground Command’s close air support had been able to corral the Rha’ket’gar’s Infiltration Unit into a tight group of mountains, and for now they were managing to hold them there. The Space Command was reinforcing those efforts, keeping the Rha’ket’gar unit from getting support and resupply by blockading the few remaining patches of Khonian airspace not shielded by the Robot Automated Defense System.
However, in order to do that, they’d been forced to give up their control of Tue, the closest inhabitable planet that lay just beyond the Defense Program’s reach. There, the Rha’ket’gar had been able to dig in and begin the build-out of several bases on its surface. From these posts, they’d be able to launch long range rockets and could threaten or delay their ability to get the R.A.D. System on-line.
If delayed long enough, the Rha’ket’gar would be able to gather enough of their forces to push through and force the entire fight to the surface of Khonia. So the Prime Commander and his commanding officers had come up with a two-part plan to prevent this from happening.
First, they would put all available resources into finding and completely destroying the Rha’ket’gar Infiltration Unit as quickly as they could, effectively cutting out the eyes and ears that their enemy had on Khonia. Once the Rha’ket’gar threat was eliminated on their homeworld, they would then hop ship and establish a foothold on the planet Tue. Their mission would be to stop the Rha’ket’gar from setting up planetary defenses that, if completed, could cut the Space Command’s ships to pieces if they dropped into an orbit on the planet.
If this was accomplished, it would allow the Space Command to push the Rha’ket’gar ships away from Tue and give them the time they would need to deploy the R.A.D. System’s drones. After this, the orbiting transport ships could pick up the Ground Command from the planet’s surface, return through the defensive grid, and once safe the rest of the drone system would be activated.
If there was any remaining concern that the Rha’ket’gar would continue to use Tue as a base to probe the shield’s defenses, the Khonical Council had already issued a military authorization to drop oxygen-depleting planet killers to eliminate the threat.
“The faster we get this infiltration unit problem taken care of, the better,” Prime Commander Truvey said. “To that end, I have been ordered by The Rigian’s Office to utilize Commander Sauk’s program and send his Saje unit into the vicinity of the valley where the enemy is hiding … to either destroy the Rha’ket’gar forces there, or chase them out into the open where we can eliminate them using any means necessary. The moment we get this done, we will regroup, then load onto interplanetary transports, and Space Command will see that we arrive on the surface of Tue as quickly as we can. We can then begin to engage the Rha’ket’gar’s defensive positions, which we know they are already working on getting up and running.”
As Truvey finished up the briefing, Jacob quickly jumped in, hoping for a chance to be heard. “Prime Commander, if I may … we are prepared to do what we must to help you out,” he said, “but I want to make sure that we do the best that we can. At Two Hills the Saje did not receive any prior knowledge of what the ground situation was before we got there, and we didn’t have enough time or flexibility to properly plan out a strategy.”
He took a short pause, shooting a quick side-look at Commander Sauk, then continued: “If we are going to be asked to do this, who better knows our abilities than we do. I can tell you that we have received the finest training from Commander Sauk and our handlers … and I know that if you give us a chance, we can come up with a solid plan that will allow us to accomplish our objectives in the way that makes the most sense. I assure you, Prime Commander, that I will not lead my people foolishly into battle.” When he finished, he bowed his head slightly.
The Prime Commander looked at Jacob, doubtfully. “Now, Captain Young is it?” He said this in a tone that showed he was not really asking a question. “Commander Sauk has briefed me on your capabilities … and the way that it works … we give him the information and he gives you the details that you need. Your job will be to go to the region, confirm the enemy’s location, and then you will try and destroy them. It’s that simple.” He spoke slowly as he looked back and forth between Jacob and Sauk, as if he was worried that the Human might not be able to completely grasp his meaning.
“Prime, how do we know if we can trust these Earthlings?” questioned an officer to Jacob’s right. He spoke in a condescending manner, confirming Jacob’s feeling of once again being considered inferior. I should be used to this by now.
“I talked to some of the guys who were at Two Hills and I don’t think they’re up to the task,” another said.
As other officers began to chime in, Commander Sauk raised his voice above theirs. “I assure you that they are up to the task! And if they’re not, what harm is there in letting them try?”
Sighing, Jacob stood up. “Gentlemen … I know that you may not want us here… but we are here nevertheless … and I assure you we can handle this task. There were some mistakes made at Two Hills, but we are not that much different than you are. We too have been separated from our homes and our families for some time now … we have been asked to fight in a war that is not ours … and we have been trained to do so with the promise that if we do our job well, we will have earned our keep and will be taken back to our homeworld. We can help you end this war quickly and get you back home to your families safely. Once Khonia is safe, the bargain will be complete and we will be ready to return to our families as well.”
“Fair enough. Have a plan to me by dusk,” said the Prime Commander, silencing any protests. “Dismissed.”
Jacob and his handler turned and left the tent. They were followed by Commander Sauk, who was nearly exploding with rage. He glared at Jacob and then angrily jabbed at the button on his wrist. The Torch’s pain exploded throughout his body and he immediately hit the ground, convulsing.
The Commander let the Torch continue for so long that Handler Dourst, concern on his face, said, “Um, Commander?”
Sauk pulled his attention away from Jacob, saw the soldiers watching from their tents, and finally released the button.
When the pain suddenly stopped, Jacob gasped, his body limp from the ordeal, as his lungs were finally able to draw a deep breath. Gleaming with sweat, he wiped the dirt-encrusted drool from his face and slowly picked himself up off the ground. He made sure to keep his gaze low, not wanting to invite another session.
“Never, I repeat, never speak out of turn again … do you understand me, Captain Young?” Commander Sauk said, coldly.
“Yes Commander,” was all that he could manage as he struggled to regain his breath and hold back his anger.
With a belittling little wave from Sauk, Handler Dourst—with Jacob in tow—turned and shambled back towards the Saje’s tent area. This time, the residual pain helped him tune out the taunts from the gawkers. When they arrived at their tents, Dourst held out his hand and gave Jacob a small box.
