Alien Alliance (26 page)

The pilot carefully kept the smirk off her
face. “Ain’t seniority a bitch,” she thought.

Aswin opened his eyes as something hit him,
knocking him flying and saw his brother. His smelly, dirty, naked
and grinning little brother. Irrepressible Kaswa. How he had missed
him! He reached out and hugged him, crying with relief, joy and
sorrow. They quickly caught up, both having refused to fly the
death planes, both having assumed they had been intended to kill
Zeobani but both now wondering if this planet would have been the
target instead.

“Do you know where we are?”

“No. No one seems to know.”

“Have you seen any other Niseyen?”

“A few.”

“Have you been loading up bodies?”

“Yes.” Kaswa shuddered. “You too?”

“Yes.” Aswin looked down. “Kaswa I’m so
sorry I got you into this mess.”

“Hey, I’m capable of making my own
decisions. I thought it was a good idea too. We’re not dead yet. I
was wondering if we could steal a plane or spaceship. I saw the
port from one of the skyscrapers.”

Aswin smiled. Typical optimistic Kaswa. “I’d
given up,” he confessed. “I’d assumed you were dead.” He didn’t add
that he was equally afraid that Kaswa might have agreed to pilot
not knowing what he would be asked to do. Such a task would have
destroyed Kaswa, who had always been more gentle and compassionate
than he was.

But he had given up. His little brother had
been a lot more resilient. Maybe, he thought, because things came
easily to him but Kaswa had had to work harder. Not thought to be
as bright as Aswin, he had had to put long hours in to pass some
subjects while Aswin sailed through with minimal effort. Other
subjects, he just seemed not to bother at all with and failed. That
had caused some arguments at home!

Aswin smiled thinking of the pilot’s
training. Kaswa had studied for that though. Incentive! He wondered
if Kaswa was brighter than he let on. Maybe he just didn’t like
study. Kaswa was a very good actor as Aswin knew well.

Aswin noticed as Kaswa tried to get some
organisation going among the slaves. He tried to get them to help
each other but the lack of Translators was a problem. And the
apathy. Aswin watched, noticing not for the first time that Kaswa
was a natural leader. What a waste. Born into a poor, low status
family where he had had no chance to develop this particular
talent. And he refused to give up. Aswin smiled as he thought of
the despair his mother had often had with Kaswa’s stubbornness. But
stubbornness was a gift if used properly as demonstrated by Kaswa’s
fight to get himself licensed, determinedly cramming himself with
the theory. He’d even rigged up a player in the cockpit and had it
playing constantly, hearing the lessons he had laboriously spoken
onto the player. Aswin had helped him, interspersing dry humour
into the lessons. He’d also copied him. It worked well. He’d
marvelled at flying time used to get qualified, earn money and
study. In these almost two years, they had packed the equivalent of
four years of study, eight years of income and five years of flying
time, all at the same time. Impossibly long hours that would be
illegal anywhere else. They would still be well qualified even if
they just somehow got themselves home alive. Their qualifications
were on the data link. But all their money was lost.

They had grown a lot closer during this war.
What a pity war was such a negative; united, but in shared hate.
Each of them had qualities the other lacked, even to different
biological clocks. They made a great team. Kaswa had always adored
his big brother but now the feeling was mutual as Aswin had a new
respect for his little brother. But Aswin had not realised that
Kaswa had such resilience nor that he himself had so little. Aswin
looked around. No, he thought. It wasn’t that. He was normal. It
was little Kaswa that was different. He got up and went to help,
second in command to his little brother.

Spurred on by Kaswa, Aswin started to think.
How could they get themselves out of this? As the day passed, they
both studied the problem.

“We are guarded, day and night. There are
snipers up on the top floors. Is the spaceport equally guarded?”
Kaswa wondered aloud.

After discrete questioning, Aswin told
him,

“A whole group of slaves and Relogs have
gone through the spaceport emptying out the dead from the
spaceships and apparently finding some alive. The poor crews. They
were quickly killed.”

“Why did none of them try to fly the space
planes off? Did they expect they would promptly get shot down if
they tried to escape?”

“Probably.”

Talking with the Zeobani, Kaswa found that
some of them, as they were small but very dextrous, had been
delegated to pack and load up all sorts of luxury items into the
troopships that had brought the slaves in. The troopships had then
left. The speed at which this was all being done was amazing.

Aswin saw Cikatcee, a Niseyen pilot, as he
looked out the second floor building. He looked around and thought.
He went down to the ground and started to move bodies into the
nearest plane, carefully watching for flying bodies. He needed to
avoid both the bodies and their contents as some were breaking
apart on landing. At the same time he was thinking what he should
ask. He moved until he was out of sight of Cikatcee and hidden in
the shadow of the plane.

“Cikatcee. Don’t look around.”

“Who’s that?”

“Aswin Celon.”

“Where are you?”

“Hiding in the shadow of your plane so I
won’t be seen!”

“What? Why?”

“I’m after some information. Where are we?
What planet?”

“We don’t know.”

“Is this a planetary war or what?”

“No, piracy. Well, we suspect a war
disguised as piracy. Standard pattern.”

“Were these two wars connected? The
Zeobani/Nashi war and this one?”

“I don’t know but I think so. The Keulfyd
were waiting and loaded us up virtually as we surrendered. They
were definitely helping the Nashi. We wondered if we were the
payment, among with an awful lot of booty loaded up from the
Zeobani cities. We had to help load it.”

“Kaswa is here too. We suspect we will be
killed once this is over. What’s the timetable?”

“Five days of gassing, then dumping the dead
and loading the troopships with booty from the Northern cities and
most of them have filled up and left. The emptying the cities of
the dead and loading more booty is supposed to take about 25 days.
Then they’ll mop up any resistance and clean up. I heard we’re
supposed to be finished and gone by about day 35, maybe 40. I think
there are penalties after day 40.”

“So there’s no room to carry the slaves
off?”

“No. Soon there’ll be just seven of those
bloody Flying Fortresses and none else. They can only carry 35,000
tops. Less, looking at all the booty they plan to load on
board.”

“How many slaves are there?”

“I don’t know. Between half to one million
I’d guess. A lot have died though.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“Are you a slave?”

“Yes.”

“Oh shit. Sorry.”

“Are they planning to kill us all?”

“I don’t know but I expect so. There’s not
enough room. There are rumours you’re to be dumped after all the
dead are cleaned out and before the resistance is mopped up.”

“What do you mean dumped? Where are the
bodies going?”

“Out to sea. The whole bottom of the
aircraft opens up. There are some Keulfyd in the back compartment.
They come out and push out the rest. The bodies are dumped into
ocean trenches.”

“Nice. What day are we up to?”

“Day four I think. I’m not sure because I
only know when I started.”

“Kaswa and I were thinking about stealing a
plane. Want to join us?”

“And what would happen to me when we get
back home?”

“Make you a deal. You don’t tell anyone we
were slaves and we don’t tell on you. And could you get us some
clothes?”

“Thanks Aswin, but that isn’t possible.”

“Why not?”

“Because one of the first things they do
once they arrive in a city is empty all the spaceships and planes
which often have survivors inside. Then they disable all the
planes. They remove rather essential parts and the same type of
part from each one to stop smart People like you repairing them. To
prevent exactly what you have in mind. And to make it easier and
faster to repair them again later. One hope we do have is that we
were told we will each be ordered to fly a spaceship away with the
fleet as it goes. To add to the booty they take with them. They
could potentially take several hundred spaceships away with the
Fleet all loaded with booty. Quite a haul.” He paused.

“The whole factor that makes planets
developed like this one so easy to conquer, is the concentrated
population. People scattering all over the planet is exactly what
they don’t want. There were a few that tried to escape. They got
shot down. And in case you were thinking of trying to fix and steal
one of these planes and go hide, they now all have locator beacons
in them. And I can’t escape anyway because they put Deadman’s on
us. If we do get to leave with the Fleet, that ensures we can’t get
more than a certain distance away from the Fleet. And they have
scanners going all the time. They’re top quality ones. They told us
that. You escape, they’ll find you. They don’t even have to land to
blast you. They told us no one will be left alive on this planet
and no one can escape. They said if we behave we will get to go
with them to the next job. We don’t believe them. We know too much.
We are way too much a security risk. Even if we get to go with
them, we don’t expect to live long once we get there,” he said
bitterly.

“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Aswin
thought hard. “How many mercenaries are there?”

“I’m not sure. They don’t tell us much
except orders and we have no Translators. They only give us
Translators to tell us something. I think about 3000 troops. Then
there’s the pilots and the crews and the support staff. We guess
about 6000 in all.”

“That’s not much to take a planet! What’s
the population here?”

“That I do know. There were around 100
million.”

“Why such a small population?”

“This planet’s original sentient population
was fish. No Terrestrials until the Ridianit took it over. They
don’t count the fish.”

“Ridianit. Yes there were a lot of them
among the dead. But that seems too small a force to take a
world.”

“If you kill almost everyone in the first
few days it isn’t. And too much resistance just gets a city blasted
from space. They’ve got the fire power in those Fortresses! And all
the planes are armed. And the shuttles. And this planet had no
military I gather, no defence. There’s a guard coming. You’d best
shuffle off. Don’t look too bright.”

“OK. Thanks.” Aswin shuffled off out of the
shadow, not looking anywhere except at the ground and up where
bodies were being thrown. As warned, he tried not to look
intelligent.

That night, he told Kaswa and the Zeobani
what he’d heard. “I’m sorry. It’s not looking good.”

“This was a worry. This was something a lot
of the slaves were worrying about, that is, those who were
functioning cognitively. Most weren’t. They weren’t thinking at
all. They were just following orders and trying not to think. There
are not enough ships left to carry the slaves back.” Jidiff (one of
the Zeobani), rambled on. His eyes looked into the distance,
unfocused.

The next morning, the shuttle landed at
another city and the day began as normal but with Kaswa and Aswin
working together and looking out for each other. They were
perturbed to see a few members of their own Race dead. They passed
them by and headed up the ramps.

“Hey the power is on!” Aswin said and
scooted into the Cleaner, followed by Kaswa next. “Oh what a relief
to be clean even if temporarily!”

They worked steadily, quickly getting dirty
again. It was truly amazing the volume of work that was being done
and the speed it was being done at. This city would be finished in
another day or so. They wondered how many cities there were and if
everyone lived in cities. Where did the rich live?

Aswin entered a store room and looked
around. He reached up and opened some cupboards, removing some junk
to look behind and his heart jumped as he saw a child of his own
Race, a little girl! She looked about ten years old. Gritting his
teeth, he reached up and pulled her body down.

Following the gas attack and Karl’s panic
attack due to claustrophobia in the Kepi caves, Julia led the run
to the shelter of the hills above the caves. They ducked under some
trees. Rani brought up the rear.

"The ship didn't land," she said, "should we
go back?"

"Are you sure? Did you watch it all the
time?" asked Julia.

"No, we were out of sight for a few
minutes," Rani added regretfully.

They agonized for several minutes then
decided to go on. A few minutes later, Julia said, "I think we
should stop a minute and strip off all things a scanner might pick
up."

There was no argument and they removed all
items except natural fabric clothing. Rani used Julia's pocket
knife to remove the studs and zip from Julia's jeans and then tied
them up with a cord made quickly from a plant with long, thin,
fibrous leaves. Carefully, they checked everyone's clothing and the
contents of everyone's pockets.

"That still leaves the fillings in our
teeth," said Karl, trying to think of everything.

Rani looked at the small pile of metal,
plastic, a calculator, three pocket knives, their watches,
cellphones, the precious Translators, and other miscellaneous
items. She hoped this wasn't a mistake. They dare not even carry a
water bottle. They were plastic.