The azure sun rose from the west.
The wind hissed like the last breath of a dying man.
The Ensign followed his commanding officers into their Wetherby, a lightweight Iblis gunship known for its mobility. The men hung from the side as the gunship danced on a cushion of air, then accelerated through the opening roof. A dozen others followed in silence.
They were heading towards the Abyss for their morning patrol; after months of flying over a desolated landscape, the Ensign had begun wishing the Conqor would simply blow up the entire region from Orbit instead. The constant fighting was taking its tolls on his morale, even though he understood why the command settled on urban warfare.
Founded on two thousand square miles of fertile land, the Abyss had the potential to become the agricultural centre of Naivety, their newest home world.
The deadly weapons on board the Humanity would squander that potential and turn the area into a wasteland. The leaders settled on a ground invasion, yet this option was not without its difficulties. The Nubians by themselves posed little threat, but the presence of Gloom Sisters, the Asmeri Special Forces, had made the operation difficult. Unlike the acolytes found in the north, the Sisters stationed in the Abyss were full members of the Shadow Cloister, often serving as both combat instructors and religious leaders.
Not wanting to fight them head-on without knowing their numbers, the Conqor bombed the place from their Forward Base in the nearest colony, Al Evivet, while human settlements encroached from every side. The plan worked, and the Abyss soon became a prison, from which no aliens could escape. From time to time, the Conqor would call for a ceasefire to initiate peace talks, but the insurgents would always reject their terms and refuse to give up a single Gloom Sister.
The Ensign could not fathom why.
The land may be fertile, but no one could cultivate crops without getting shot. The rainfall may have been abundant, but so were the bombs falling from above. Their power grid was in shamble, their water supplies were unreliable, and the place was worse to live than a dumpster planet, but the insurgents kept finding new ways to fight back.
The Ensign lifted his visor to wipe a cold sweat from his forehead. His eyes surveyed the ruins and the towers in the distance, his shoulders carrying a profound weariness. “What are we doing here,” he muttered, unaware that he was speaking out loud.
“To give them hell, Ensign. Found anything fun to shoot?” said Lieutenant Major Kieran Knightly, a seasoned veteran who had completed five tours prior. Perched behind his Iblis Xmassacre Heavy Gatling (XHG), Knightly had been responsible for more confirmed kills than anyone the Ensign knew. His armour, the Gotthard Mark III, carried a coat of alien blood he refused to clean.
“Not much. Lots of civilians hiding under those domes, sir.”
“If they’re moving, they’re insurgents,” Knightly snorted and turned to their pilot, Lieutenant Henry Keen, a dark-skinned man with a goatee. “I’m telling you, Keen, if they don’t start mounting better guns on these crafts, I’m transferring to Tactical Assault. They have the latest gear from Cerberus and we’re flying around with an Iblis fossil.”
“You’re out of your mind, Knightly. Iblis is all about quality and their gears have a service span of twelve concodes. Cerberus gears have a planned obsolescence in six. ”
“I don't buy it. How much you wanna bet that if I fire this old girl at that dome, the particle beams will bounce?”
“You’re on. I’ll spin the ship around so you can get a better shot. If even one freak dies, you owe me 100 credits.”
The Ensign looked between the two veterans.
“They’re not moving, sir.”
“Their lungs are moving. Don’t be such a party poop. ”
“If you're worried about civilians, don't. Knightly’s a horrible shot. My five years old has better aim that he does!"
"Piss off, Keen."
The Wetherby hovered above a shield dome covering an alien school district. The Ensign could see tiny movements below through the sensors in his helmet. He gulped as Knightly placed his finger on the trigger.
“Remember, if one of them dies-”
“Yeah, yeah. Shut up and let me mark the targets.”
The Xmassacre was a particle canon, which required the gunner to pre-heat the air using an invisible laser, creating a tunnel for the beams to travel without shedding their energy. Knightly squeezed the trigger and the gun glowed red. A dozen beams exploded within a second, shattering the dome and melting the building in which the aliens hid. The screams from below rose steadily as Knightly pelted the aliens with an array of colours, cutting through their flesh and leaving behind a path of molten sludge.
A few children rushed out of the building in a panic. The particle beams tore through their frail bodies like papers; their parents rushed to cradle their bodies so their remains would melt into each other, never be separated in death.
“You owe me a hundred credits,” Keen laughed.
“Whatever. At least my aim is not half bad.”
“They were huddled together. A blind man could’ve done it."
"Your turn, Ensign."
Knightly moved aside for the recruit.
With trembling hands, the Ensign seated himself behind the canon and directed it at an alien man running away from the hellish scene. It’s an insurgent, he reminded himself. They can build domes and houses and sing songs for their false goddess, but they are not humans.
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A rush of adrenaline swept over him as he pulled the trigger and listened to the creature shriek. There were no consequences to what he was doing. He was a god dispensing death to the unworthy.
“Damn, son. You’re a natural,” Keen laughed.
“It was a lucky shot. See if you can hit that small one.”
“The small one?”
“Yeah. The little freak wailing next to its mama.”
“I think I’ll pass.”
“You’re no fun, Ensign.”
The Ensign gritted his teeth. "They're brainwashed, right?" he said. "They'll grow up to be terrorists and hurt humans."
"Hells yeah. The Gloom Sisters’ got them under their purple thumbs. They'll be terrorizing human colonies in no time."
The Ensign took a deep breath and steadied his finger.
The trigger was so heavy, he wondered if it were jammed.
Before he found the strength to pull it, however, the small alien child screamed as he melted into a puddle of nasty colours. Another Wetherby zipped past.
The Ensign saw a helmeted female gunner with a daring midriff, making rude gestures behind her canon. Knightly gave her the finger while the pilots taunted one another over their comm. No one seemed to hear the agonizing screams from the street below.
The Ensign wondered if their helmet had malfunctioned.
For the longest time, he had always believed killing aliens was his calling. He grew up with a mild intellectual disability, his teachers were either cruel or apathetic, and his friends had turned on him at the first sign of trouble. Even his parents gave up on him.
He felt like an alien to his people until the Conqor gave him a purpose.
The enemy of mankind is not a man, his benefactor had told him.
And when he learned the history of mankind in the Academy, how the aliens used to treat them like savages, how the Pristinians had conducted terrible experiments on human children, the Ensign swore he would never show aliens mercy.
Now that he was nearing the end of his second tour with Air Support, The Ensign realized he hated the wailing and pleading and exploding flesh. He wished he could transfer back to the safety of a Titan. It would be much easier to annihilate them from high orbit with the press of a button.
“You okay, Ensign?” Keen asked.
“He's fine. It’s only his second tour. Give him time,” Knightly said. “Always remember, if these vermin are flying the gunships, they’d wipe us out in a second. Ain’t that right, Keen?”
“Positive. They’re animals and they don’t deserve your sympathy-”
A sharp whizzing sound interrupted Keen.
A spinning Crescent cleaved the tails of the other gunship as if its proximity shield were made of paper.
The thing must not have shown up on the radar; the other pilot swore loudly over the radio and ejected himself from the cockpit promptly. His passengers followed suit.
Their Wetherby spun and wheezed as it tumbled into a ditch.
“Attention, all support units patrolling Canyon 13.1. This is Fox Two. We have a bogey or some kind of aerial alien weaponry in the area. Fox Nine is down. I repeat, Fox Nine is down. Requesting assistance. Over,” Keen said, eyeing the ruins below.
“Roger that, Two. This is Forest One. Dispatching additional patrols your way. Have you got eyes on the bogey? Over.”
“It looks like some type of disk. Over-”
“On the Tower!”
The Ensign pointed at a derelict broadcasting tower, upon which stood a slender figure with braided hair and long sharp ears.
She wore a purple cybernetic plugsuit and her skin was the colour of rouge. Her mask covered only her mouth and nose, revealing her bright purple eyes. She caught the Crescent easily and threw it again like a Frisbee.
“Forest One. Fox Two. Have visuals of a harlot on a tower in area 13.1. The disk appears to be a weapon. Permission to engage. Break. ”
“Roger, Two. That’s a negative. A Gloom Sister is not something you can tackle with a Wetherby. I’m flaring this area for a Serpent to pick up. All aircraft in 13.1, return to base ASAP-”
The Crescent soared towards another Wetherby, striking it from the sky. A giant ball of flame rose as the gunship sank into the ruins below.
The Ensign had heard much about the Gloom Sisters at the Forward Base. To the settlers, they were religious zealots who wanted to eradicate humans. To the natives, they were the Goddess of the Azure Sky.
And though the Ensign had always thought the Nubians silly to worship something that could bleed and die, he now understood their reverence after seeing her in action.
“Isaac be damned, they’re worse than legends,” Keen muttered.
“We’ll be a pile of scrap by the time a Serpent shows up! Take us closer, Keen. I’m gonna make mincemeat out of her.”
“Negative. You heard the control. I’m taking us back to base.”
“Gee, I had no idea you were such a coward.”
The Sister prepared to throw out her weapon again.
The chorus of distant fights interrupted her dance.
Across the river, a group of insurgents had begun firing at a human gunship, but their slugs did little against its forcefield. She leapt onto the top of the tower gracefully and propelled herself forward with a kick.
Knightly pushed the Ensign aside and fired the canon.
The Sister twisted her waist mid-air and held her right arm in front of her torso. A magenta force shield opened up like a blooming flower, dissipating the energy. Her body disappeared as she landed, but the crescent did not stop until it struck its target.
Keen turned the gunship towards Al Evivet and pressed a red button on the central console, sending the twin hover engine into turbo mode.
Their Wetherby hummed loudly, but the Ensign could still hear the sound of a blade slicing through the air.
WHAM!
The blade tore the wing of their gunship, sending it into a tailspin.
“Shit!” Keen cursed. He gave the others a look before pulling the handle by his seat and ejecting himself from the cockpit.
“See you on the ground, gents!”
The passengers grabbed their rifles and jumped out as their Wetherby broke through a shield dome, crashing into an abandoned shrine below. Both of them deployed their emergency parachute; a torrent of wind separated the two. The Ensign lost sight of Knightly as the ground rose to meet him. The impact rattled his armour, and the debris from the flaming gunship punctured his torso. He screamed as a fluid oozed from the wounds.
“Multiple trauma detected, applying morphine injection,” a robotic voice announced in his helmet. He swiped his finger across his wrist, and the voice continued. “Deploying Peashooter. Model: C3. Mode. Sentry. Battery: 100 percent.”
He waited until the pain subsided and pushed himself onto his elbows, his eyes searching the half-collapsed shrine for his officers.
“Knightly?” he shouted. “Lieutenant Keen? Anyone?”
“Movement detected.”
The Ensign turned to find a small, teal creature dragging itself towards him, its webbed hand opened, its ridged scalp bleeding. He had never gotten a proper look at the insurgents until now.
Maybe it was the morphine, but he found the Nubian fascinating. He could see the intelligence behind their eyes.
“Naya na,” the creature said. “Ada ma kaya na, ala ka naya.”
The Ensign made a hand sign and signaled his Peashooter to stand by.
“I can’t understand you,” he said.
The Nubian pointed at its shoulder, then at its stomach.
They were the spots that corresponded with the Ensign’s wounds.
“Naya?”
A shiver ran down his spine when he realized the creature was asking about his injury. It’s not human, he told himself again. The voice in his head sounded a lot less convincing this time.
“I’m fine-” he began, but his words were cut short by the whirl of a Gatling gun.
The bullets shattered the creatures, turning their soft flesh into a mass of innards and twitching limbs. When the barrage stopped, a figure emerged from the shrine.
“You dumbass,” Knightly said. “They can’t understand you.”
The ensign stared at the mingled body on the ground.
He wondered what they were saying.
“What the hell are you staring at? Come on! Let’s get outta here and rendezvous with the others at checkpoint Eleven.”
“That thing…It wasn’t moving.”
The Lieutenant Major merely snorted. “Neither were you.”