Alien Alliance (53 page)

Without thinking he said, “Why did she keep
firing? Did she forget?”

“No,” said Bea. “We talked about this. We
all had trouble with the gloves. They catch on the side bits. They
slowed us down. Tasha and Donny said the older kids would carry on
firing if they ripped their gloves. If they thought they should.
They said me and Bella were to stop though. They said we’d done
enough. They said we were too young to be a kamikaze.”

“What’s kamikaze?”

Bea answered, “When you do something. And
you know if you do it you will die. But it means you save many
others.” She looked sadly at Tasha, “It wasn’t an accident.”

Az walked away, stunned to his core. This
little girl had knowingly and deliberately given her life. It was
planned. That was a Niseyen tactic. “Do your people do that often,
this Kami whatever.”

“Kamikaze. Yes we do. It makes more sense in
battle for a few to give their lives for the many,” Li was in tears
too.

“We have that same philosophy,” he said
softly. “It makes us hard to beat.”

He passed the Mess, more Aliens were
arriving. The Cats were the main guards he saw. Good idea.

Az continued around, checking for dead and
injured. He saw several Cats dead or badly injured. He missed
Kelly. She had gone with Kaz. Ludmilla was their medic. He was
looking for her. She should be in the hospital. Following the other
Terrans, he found her. She was busy getting herself organised. At
least she seemed to be OK. A bit injured though. There were some
bandages he could see and a lot of blood but maybe it wasn’t hers.
Some Cats were helping her, very enthusiastically. They were
emptying the bags of sick Aliens. They were neither polite nor
gentle. Most of the Aliens who could, were dragging themselves out
of their bags rather than go flying on to the floor and then get
clawed outside. It was a very fast and effective method. He had to
admire their efficiency.

Li and Az found themselves recruited. Az
knew the routine here. He wheeled the bag under a Cleaner, switched
it on till it flashed and it was ready for a new occupant. Li
copied him. Within a few minutes, they had a whole area cleared,
the bags ready.

Li finished the last bag and looked around.
All the Aliens were gone and the bags were filling up. They had all
learned the routine but she checked each incoming. Breathing, alert
or not, bleeding stopped. A lot of the injured were Cats. They were
so big and heavy it took four of them to lift a Cat onto a bag.
Shocked, she saw Simone being carried in. Her right arm was blown
off and she had chunks out of her face. Her side was soaked in
blood. She was alert though. Li helped her onto a bag then noticed
to her horror that her right leg was gone too below the knee. Her
whole right side seemed to have been damaged. She wasn’t bleeding
though.

“What happened?”

“Bad. Our team copped it. Some dead.”

“Just hang on. Stay alive. We’ll get you
into a Machine. Your arm and leg will re grow.” Li hoped this was
right. She held up her arm and called for Ludmilla.

Within half an hour Az was back reporting to
Mathew. “Tasha is dead, the other children OK. It was Simone’s team
that ran into the main trouble. The sentries were Relogs. They came
out in a rush and ran full into them. Minka is dead, Anne and
Simone badly injured, Julia’s injured but she’s mobile. They wiped
out the Relogs though. Some of the Cats were with them. They got
hammered too. The other teams have injuries, some very bad, but no
more fatalities so far among Terrans. Some Cats are dead though. I
don’t know how many. Anne and Simone need a Machine. So do some of
the Cats. Can I fly them out?”

“Can you do it by yourself?”

“Li will come. She can fly.”

Mathew smiled, “Now why am I not surprised?
Check with Helkmid and Ludmilla. Make sure they’re stable enough to
fly. Go.”

Az commandeered one of the ground cars. It
was quickly loaded with the worst of the injured and soon they were
in the air. Az was in a hurry. He flew at full speed. It didn’t
matter if they were detected now. On board he had Anne, Bea and
eight badly injured Cats. No medical staff. None could be spared.
Kelly had ordered all the children to be removed with the medical
flights. She told them they were needed to fetch and carry and help
with the wounded. It was really so they wouldn’t see what was to
happen next. The dead were going to be dumped and there were a lot
of them. But first, the prisoners were going to the islands to be
guarded by the Priskya.

Az’s flight was bad. Two of the Cats died
and Anne was barely alive. Little Bea stayed with her, begging her
to live. Az called ahead, telling one of Helkmid’s staff that
three, in Ludmilla’s judgment, would have to go straight in. The
others could wait but not long. Bea couldn’t understand why Helkmid
said Simone had to stay behind.

“Simone won’t die Bea,” said Li. “Her
injuries are awful but they won’t kill her. She is young and
strong. She can wait.”

“But there are eight Machines.”

“And there will be other flights like this.
Three others,” Li said grimly. Helkmid had told them that all
survivable injuries were not to come. Not this time. There were
only eight Healing Machines. Simone got bumped off the flight along
with two other Cats.

The other Cats and Anne survived the flight.
After delivering them, exhausted, Li and Az decided to get some
sleep. It was now night time.

On rising later, they reported to Alan for
orders.

“You need to transport one of Helkmid’s
staff back. The Okme has the rest of the Cures. Also going back are
Anne and some Cats. All have had enough hours to stabilise them.
There should be other Machines in other cities and there were Okme
slaves, Healers, on the Keulfyd ships. They will help too. The
Keulfyd will hopefully not have had enough time to loot all the
Healing Centres especially considering they already had some
Healing Machines. At least Helkmid is hoping so.” Az looked around.
Since they had been asleep, some other changes had been made. Alan
smiled, “I am to go back with you to take over the city that has
been renamed Tasha. By a unanimous vote. Another city will be named
after Minka.” This changing of Leaders left Az’s head spinning.

They arrived back to find the awful task of
dumping the dead was in full swing. The ships had landed, two by
Tasha. The survivors were on the islands, guarded by Priskya. All
the main surviving Races had had their treatment but some were
treated with placebos. A lot of goop had been delivered with them.
The Cats had reported days ago that the goop was back on and
uncontaminated. It had previously fed the slaves. The prisoners
were told to drink sea water. They were not happy. Reduced to
drinking water like a slave, didn’t help.

As the survivors were surrendering, Stella
noticed something. She called on the radio asking Kaz to come to
the Mess.

“What’s wrong?”

“There are some Niseyen here.”

“What do you want to do with them?”

Stella thought hard. “What would happen to
them in Petislay?”

“They would go on trial.”

“For murder?”

“Yes.”

“What should we do?”

“This is not a call I can make. Ask
Sarah.”

Stella contacted Sarah and explained adding,
“Kaz thinks if the Niseyen are left among the prisoners on the
island, they stand a good chance of being killed in
retaliation.”

“How many of them are there?”

“I can see eleven. They’re dressed as
pilots.”

“Oh are they now?”

“Separate them out. Keep them under
guard.”

Stella, accompanied by several Cats, walked
through the survivors who quickly moved out of her way. The Niseyen
were trying to keep a low profile at the back. She saw their shock
as they saw her and her escort. Stella was armed and angry. She
gestured and they promptly obeyed. They moved out of the buildings
circled by Cats. They looked very unhappy. After a few minutes
Sarah arrived. She was armed, dirty, bloody and bandaged. She was
also angry.

“So which of you bastards murdered millions,
your own people among them?!”

There was a guilty silence. Some looked up
as Kaz arrived in time to hear Sarah’s question. He looked them
over, recognizing several. Some looked at him hoping he would speak
for them.

“So now who made the right decision?” He
asked softly looking pointedly at some of them.

“They would have killed us!” said one.

“You lie,” said Kaz. “You were given the
same choice I was given.”

“You were given the same choice and became a
slave?” asked Sarah.

“Yes.”

“I see. Well I think that makes my decision
easy. If anyone objects, we can argue it later.” She turned to the
pilots. “Strip or go with them,” she ordered indicating the other
prisoners.

Stella smiled seeing where Sarah was going
with this. Kaz looked on impassive, trying not to think about his
own decision and how he had considered the alternative. Not for
long though, he told himself.

Sarah and Stella stared at the very
horrified, humiliated and embarrassed Niseyen as they slowly
stripped. They did not realise that to Sarah and the other Terrans,
they still looked clothed. It was irrelevant. This was
psychological. With this act, the Niseyen were accepting an unknown
and non-negotiable term of slavery. The alternative was death. With
this act, they accepted no rights, even to their own lives. They
became non-people owned by others. Kaz ensured their data bracelets
came off too.

Sarah turned them over to Stella to direct.
She had noticed they were very uncomfortable with her, much more so
than with Kaz. Stella ordered them to start loading the prisoners
onto the planes for transport to the islands. She noticed the
sneers and comments of some of the prisoners towards the newly
designated slaves.

Sarah contacted Mathew, explaining what had
happened and what she had decided to do. There were no objections.
Sarah motioned Kaz over.

“Are there any risks? Will there be any
problems or violence from them?”

“Heck no. They will be perfectly behaved.
They can be killed for any reason. They have no rights at all.
Their lives are literally in your hands. They will quickly lose all
self respect and any fight.”

*

Memoofyd and her team of Okme Healers noted
a disturbance on the ship but listlessly took no notice until a
Keulfyd crew member barged into their Healing Centre and ordered
them to remove all those being treated as the ship was being
evacuated and to hurry. Hurry, they did having learned that any
delay in following orders generally resulted in bruises at the
least. Half an hour later, all four of the Machines were empty and
the annoyed and (luckily) dazed former occupants were being sent on
their way. Memoofyd had made an executive decision and decided to
tell none of the machine’s ex inhabitants that the treatment they
had paid a cut price for had been cut short and they had not even
gotten their money’s worth. They had all had enough of being
shoved, hit, punched, and flung against things by Keulfyd who were
many times their size and they had no time for any of them. Deceit
felt so good. Their unwanted ex patients had lost all sense of time
and there was no outward sign that their Treatment had been cut
short. She knew she would be safe for a while at least.

Memoofyd and her team had been busy cleaning
the Machines when they were again interrupted and ordered out of
the room and off the ship. Squinting in the afternoon sunlight, to
her astonishment she saw all the Keulfyd evacuating under guard.
They had been captured? The Keulfyd had been captured?? She
couldn’t stop the smile. But who could have done this? By this time
the rest of her team had noticed and were showing a variation of
expressions she hadn’t seen for a while, all wonder or cheerful.
Murmuring among themselves, they tried to identify the People with
the guns but couldn’t. Memoofyd became apprehensive as she saw that
one of their new capturers had seen them. One called to another and
a woman came over that looked like a jare Niseyen.

Watching the different races coming off the
starship, Sarah saw the Okme Stella was pointing at. She directed
them all to one side and questioned them, “what are you doing
here?”

“The Keulfyd have our families,” one said,
“they said if we didn’t come with them they would kill our families
and all the Okme they could find.”

“They took out all our Healing Machines and
brought them on board,” another added. “They ordered us to treat
the officers but we told them the machines had been damaged in
transit and we had to fix them. Then we told them some parts were
damaged or broken and we could make more parts of repair them but
it would take time. They didn’t argue as their slaves were very
rough with them and we told them at the time that they were being
damaged. We stalled all we could until we judged we would have to
start treating but we didn’t actually heal many of them. We told
them we were using two Machines to fix the other two so that
reduced the available Machines to two and unless someone was
watching, we turned them off. We rigged the lights so they shone
green regardless.” she added, “It was amazing how good they felt
afterwards. But eventually we had to start using more of the
Machines.”

“We knew they would kill us as soon as we
were no more use to them so we aimed to pretend all of them were
treated and that we were still trying to fix the other machines. By
the time they found out they weren’t healed, we would be long dead.
And we kept stressing to them that the Machines were damaged,”
another added.

Sarah didn’t know quite what to make of this
so she called for Az. While she started to explain he took one look
at them and said, “They’re telling the truth. They have no clothes
on and their data bracelets are gone. They were slaves, same as
us.”