{"id":820,"date":"2014-11-16T04:45:05","date_gmt":"2014-11-16T11:45:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/?p=820"},"modified":"2014-11-16T04:45:05","modified_gmt":"2014-11-16T11:45:05","slug":"end-of-the-line-chapter-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/?p=820","title":{"rendered":"End of the Line – Chapter One"},"content":{"rendered":"

(First chapter of a nearly finished post-apocalyptic, alien invasion, military science fiction novel. Not sure why I can no longer get proper formatting in these posts anymore…)<\/strong><\/p>\n

ONE<\/strong><\/p>\n

I watched the endless lines of humans allow themselves to be herded to their deaths from three miles away. The combat scope\u2019s digital zoom was top-notch, and allowed me to see too much detail. A woman in a torn red dress, crying with two children clutched to her chest, a family of at least eight, most of the children still in their pre-teen years, a group of at least thirty senior citizens, all of them too dazed to resist as they were led like cattle to the slaughterhouse.<\/p>\n

The building that housed the Kai ovens reminded me of a warped children\u2019s toy, one invented by a sadistic madman. Instead of malleable clay being fed into one end and spaghetti or pizza coming out the other, this one took in human beings and belched out an oily, blackish-grey smoke that hung in the air like thick smog. I wondered if the Kai had bothered to learn some human history, then decided to pick one of the most terrible events ever recorded as a fitting end for us. We had no idea what the Kai had done to the Hanura, other than once the Wire had gone silent, their amusing voices no longer chattering on the network, we knew that they\u2019d become part of galactic history. The same with The Seven, our other ally against the Kai. Maybe this was the way that the Kai always vanquished their foes.<\/p>\n

A commotion to the right caught my attention and I shifted the scope. A Kai soldier had picked up a human in each of its two powerful hands and carried them toward the entrance of the furnace. The two Kai soldiers guarding the doorway stepped forward to block the mass of humans while their comrade dragged the kicking, screaming men inside the building. The soldier reappeared three seconds later, and began patrolling the area as if nothing had happened. I thumbed the power button on the scope and rolled over when the Kai began shuffling people into the incinerator again. I couldn\u2019t watch anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow bad is it?\u201d Sergeant McAdams asked me from a few feet down the hillside.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe same as Denver, Salt Lake, and Great Falls,\u201d I whispered down to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome on, let\u2019s go,\u201d she said.
\n<\/p>\n

I slid down the hill, grabbing on to the sergeant\u2019s arm to steady myself once I reached her. She gave me a hard smile, one that looked full of regret that I\u2019d been chosen to scout the scene playing out on the other side of the hill. I thought I was going to be all right until my stomach rippled and my knees buckled. I spewed C-rations all over the soft dirt and pine needles, barely missing her boots.<\/p>\n

\u201cDana\u2014\u201d she started, but I held up my hand to let her know I was okay.<\/p>\n

I tried to stand, but my stomach lurched again, and I fell back to my knees. I couldn\u2019t get the images out of my head, no matter how many times I gagged, puked, and coughed. The familiar, cold, acidic pit began to form in my stomach. Hearing that the Kai were putting the last of us to the torch was one thing. Seeing it in action in four major cities was another, especially when I considered that it was happening all over the world. I felt Sergeant McAdams\u2019 hand on my back. She\u2019d knelt down and tried to comfort me as best she could while I fell apart. We\u2019d all done it, and this wasn\u2019t my first time. I\u2019d been there for Sergeant McAdams, Krista when we weren\u2019t acting in an official military capacity, when she\u2019d popped after watching the citizens of Salt Lake City being funneled to their deaths.<\/p>\n

Her hand moved from the middle of my back to around my shoulders. I dry-heaved one last time, then put my arms around her. We held each other for a few minutes, the silence overpowering anything we might have said to each other. There was nothing left to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the end of the line for us,\u201d I whispered.<\/p>\n

Krista touched her forehead to mine and forced a smile onto her lips. I wanted to break down and cry, but it wouldn\u2019t do any good. I returned her smile and let her help me up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere do you think Sergeant Lowell will want to go next?\u201d I asked as we made our way down the hillside to the tree line.<\/p>\n

\u201cHell if I know,\u201d she answered. \u201cIf the bastards are in places like Missoula and Great Falls, then they\u2019ll be pretty much everywhere. If not now, then when the bigger cities are empty.\u201d<\/p>\n

We walked for another fifteen minutes until we were deep under the pine forest canopy. Private Monohan challenged us with an FoF ping when we crossed the camp\u2019s perimeter motion sensor ring. Sergeant McAdams touched the comm screen sewn into the left forearm of her fighting suit, letting the three automated turrets know that we were friendlies. The KTL-300 automatic plasma repeaters were a bitch to lug around, especially over the two thousand miles we\u2019d had to carry them, but when the enemy came calling, a single 300 could target and fire with the efficiency of ten Terran Marines.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d lost six of them since Little Rock, but then again, we were what was left of the 140-man B-Company. Sergeant Vasquez and Corporal Jordan were the only two left from all of A-Company, which was better than SPC Goldman, who we picked up outside of Denver. Goldman was the only surviving member of the 133rd. When we\u2019d found him and heard his story, all I could think of was how weird it must be to be the only person left out of an entire twenty-five thousand man division.<\/p>\n

These days, I had a pretty good idea. Goldman wasn\u2019t alone in sharing such a burden. Ensign Kirilenko, a combat nurse from the 7th Support Wing, Gold Fleet, was, as far as she (or anyone still living) knew, the last surviving member of the entire Terran Navy. I\u2019m sure there are still a few human ships out there somewhere, but by the time the call came in alerting us that the Kai had taken our home system, none were broadcasting on the Wire.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

We\u2019d heard about the Kai extermination camps on the Wire, and had raced home from TS-137, the last standing outpost of humanity, sixteen light years away. The enemy fleet had slaughtered us when we\u2019d spun down from Q-space. We had translated into the system in the asteroid belt, two light minutes above the plane of the ecliptic, with over sixteen hundred warships and nearly two million marines. It was everything we had left.<\/p>\n

There\u2019d been arguments that maybe we should try and use our forces to break through the lesser-defended Kai regions and on to deep space beyond. We had enough genetic diversity to restart our civilization somewhere else, and we had enough tech, fuel, and food to make life difficult but not impossible until we could get a resource production system going. The argument against it was partly that we\u2019d assembled the largest fleet ever known (to humans, anyway, as we would find out a week later), which gave too many of the command ranks too much confidence. The Kai were decent fighters with superior tech. Humans were superior fighters with weaker (and mostly stolen, then hybridized) tech, which gave our generals and admirals the idea that if we overwhelmed the enemy with numbers, our numbers would be the winning factor.<\/p>\n

When the orders were handed out, my first thought was that we were making another wrong decision. We\u2019d made a series of wrong decisions, all the way back to when the Terran Coalition decided it was a good idea to join forces with the Hanura and The Seven to take on the Kai. It must have seemed as if we\u2019d easily route the Kai and send them home to lick their wounds while they sued for peace, lest we impose blockades and sanctions on them. For a while, it seemed as if the strategists and think-tanks had been correct in their predictions and endless simulations. Then, I guess, the Kai finally decided to do more than swat at annoying flies.<\/p>\n

Someone higher up than my pay grade had apparently forgotten to do some history homework. The Kai were already feared in our neck of the galaxy, but for the most part, as long as no one intruded upon their domain, an empire that stretched across 12,000 light years, they ignored the other races. The Hanura and the Kai got into a spat about something, then The Seven began fighting with them soon after. I guess humans decided it was time to get some fightin\u2019 in, since we\u2019d been at peace with our neighbors for almost a century other than minor conflicts (and whenever one of our own colonies needed to have an uprising quelled). At some point, the Hanura and The Seven formed an alliance with the Terran Coalition, and then it was on, as the old saying goes.<\/p>\n

The history lesson would have been the Varu and the Hoerus. We found out about them three months after a very furious Kai representative landed in Gelta-III\u2019s capital city, hacked the airwaves and the local Wire, and explained to humanity that there would now be no quarter, no mercy given for bringing war to the Kai. The rep then proceeded to go on a killing spree with two small automated combat mechs, eliminating almost four thousand humans before being brought down by the local Terran Home Guard units.<\/p>\n

Someone had finally decided to ask around about our new adversaries, and what we found out is that we were up against an enemy who didn\u2019t believe in winning and losing like most of the galaxy\u2019s denizens did. The Kai, when angered, exterminated their enemies. Down to the very last member of the species. They\u2019d gone to war with the Varu more than a millennium earlier, and had defeated them within the first forty years. The Kai spent the next three centuries hunting down every last Varu in the galaxy. During that three hundred year hunt, the Kai had wiped out the Hoerus simply for helping the Varu hide or escape.<\/p>\n

The big mystery for humanity had been exactly how the Kai went about exterminating their enemies. Once the Kai had an opponent surrounded, the Wire went dead, and none of the races watching from the sidelines ever heard from the doomed civilization again. At least we knew the answer to the mystery now.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

\u201cShit,\u201d First Sergeant Lowell muttered when McAdams told him what I\u2019d seen. \u201cShit fucking shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are we gonna do, Sarge?\u201d Private Grummond asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re gonna shut the fuck up and let Sergeant Lowell tell us what we\u2019re gonna do,\u201d Sergeant Vasquez growled.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right, Pedro,\u201d Sgt. Lowell said, looking up. Lowell was the only one allowed to use Vasquez\u2019s nickname.<\/p>\n

Helen Kirilenko, the Navy ensign, sat down next to me. She looked sad, defeated, but still had a tiny spark left within her that kept her going. How, I don\u2019t know. She\u2019d watched her entire fleet become atomized carbon, and then during the massive escape pod exodus from the doomed ships, she watched again as what seemed like millions of Kai fighters picked off thousands of her comrades before the pods could enter Earth\u2019s atmosphere. Not that hitting the atmosphere was any safer, as the Kai defensive batteries had opened up the second the pods came within five miles of the ground.<\/p>\n

How the woman wasn\u2019t a puddle of emotional goo, or worse, a catatonic zombie, was beyond me. Especially for the fact that she wasn\u2019t a combat soldier, and the closest she\u2019d been to the fighting before crashing into her home planet outside of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, had been measured in terms of light years. I decided it was the Russian genes in her that made her tougher than just about all of us. I put my arm around her and gave her a soft smile. I hoped the misery of what I\u2019d witnessed from the hilltop didn\u2019t make my smile resemble a mad clown\u2019s grin. She returned the smile and gave my bicep a squeeze.<\/p>\n

\u201cLofgren,\u201d Sgt. Lowell called out to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, Sir,\u201d I said, standing up and saluting the highest ranking soldier left in the Terran Coalition.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuit hamming, Lofgren,\u201d he said. \u201cDid you notice anything new or different down there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, Sir\u201d I said. \u201cSame basic setup, just a lot less of the bastards since Missoula isn\u2019t Houston or Seattle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about defenses? Patrols? Surveillance units?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou planning on trying to liberate that camp, Mike?\u201d McAdams asked with a raised eyebrow.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Lowell said. He looked over at me again. \u201cWhat do you think, Private?\u201d<\/p>\n

I shrugged. \u201cIt\u2019s a terrible idea, but whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy is it a terrible idea?\u201d he asked. The entire camp had stopped and was listening to our conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s what\u2026 thirteen of us?\u201d I asked. He nodded. \u201cOkay, so we got thirteen meat sacks and three of the 300\u2019s left, but those aren\u2019t so hot for offensive missions. But let\u2019s say we got them set up, without being detected, and somehow, through magic or divine intervention, we defeat or drive the Kai off from the area. What then? There\u2019s probably twenty thousand citizens left down there, who knows, but that\u2019s not even as important was what the fuck we\u2019re gonna do when our liberation instantly converts them into twenty thousand refugees. We have enough weapons and ammo for maybe ten extra soldiers. We don\u2019t have enough food to feed even a hundred of them. Then there\u2019s the bigger question, which is how the Kai will respond to our little liberation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll come at us hard,\u201d Vasquez said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs hard as they did our home system,\u201d I said in agreement.<\/p>\n

Lowell and the others nodded. When our fleet had translated out of Q-space, we\u2019d been expecting a thousand, maybe as many as three thousand Kai warships waiting for us. In fact, Fleet Command had run the simulations to see what the theoretical limit of enemy strength required to defeat our combined fleet would be. The sim servers at TS-137 had predicted that we could still win in a situation where we were outnumbered three to one. When the sensors lit up after translation, no one believed it at first. The Kai had almost twenty thousand heavy warships parked from Mercury to Neptune. The tactical nets had nearly melted from having to track such a large number of enemies.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what you\u2019re saying,\u201d Lowell said, \u201cis that we should do what the dipshits from Command didn\u2019t do, which is to get the fuck out of Dodge and survive as long as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a good plan,\u201d Sergeant McAdams said softly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll second that,\u201d Private Talamentez said, her voice full of resolve, though she looked as devastated as I felt after hearing that Missoula was just like everywhere else.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd just let all of our people become firewood?\u201d Specialist Hollingsworth asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the fuck are we going to do?\u201d Private Bishara, the only Muslim among us, probably the only Muslim left alive by now, asked in a heated tone. \u201cLofgren already said all there is to say. Even if we liberate Missoula, the Kai will hunt us down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t just let them die!\u201d Hollingsworth shouted. \u201cThey might be the last ones left besides us!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToo fuckin\u2019 bad,\u201d Corporal Jordan said. When Hollingsworth shot him a hateful glare, he gave her his middle finger. \u201cThat\u2019s what they get for not getting off their asses and joining the Corps to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a real humanitarian,\u201d she said with disgust. The specialist looked around to the rest of us. \u201cSo that\u2019s it then? This is it? We just wander around the country, maybe around the world, and take note of how every single city has been emptied out and dumped into the ovens?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the end of the line for us,\u201d Sergeant McAdams said, but her eyes were locked on me.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat it is,\u201d Lowell agreed. \u201cBut not today. Maybe not for a while, if we\u2019re lucky and we keep our heads on straight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo,\u201d Monohan said from behind me, \u201cour plan now is to\u2026 what? Survive and\u2026? Repopulate the planet after these assholes have wiped everyone out and gone home?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey ain\u2019t going anywhere,\u201d Goldman said. Everyone turned to him. \u201cThe Kai swallow up their enemies\u2019 systems. There\u2019s a thousand light year wall pinning us in. No one knows what they do once they\u2019ve cleansed a planet, but they damn sure don\u2019t take their toys and go back home when they\u2019re done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere did you hear this?\u201d Lowell asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was attached to Command S-7 before Green Fleet was annihilated at Pavonis. The Coalition had sent automated drones deep into Kai space to find the remnants of the Varu and others. The Navy sent at least one per day, and they kept that up for almost thirty years, until someone decided the trillions of dollars spent on the program had been a total waste.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNone ever returned, eh?\u201d Lowell asked, scratching his cheek as if in deep thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cNope,\u201d Goldman said with a sigh. \u201cThe best intel we were getting was from the Rizor Empire, as they\u2019d been around as long as the Kai. It should have been a sign when the Empire suddenly cut their Wire with us. Command had always assumed that the Empire and the Kai were evenly matched, but when the price of losing a war is total extermination\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey weren\u2019t gamblers, I guess,\u201d McAdams said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of this helps us,\u201d Hollingsworth said.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d lost some of the bitterness that had erupted earlier, but I wondered if she wasn\u2019t starting to crack. I hoped I didn\u2019t have to shoot her in the back if she got a crazy idea to try and liberate Missoula by herself. I hated the thought of it, but it was either her, or the twelve of us. Missoula, and every other city on the planet, was doomed no matter what we did.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore the planetary Wire went dead,\u201d Kirilenko said, standing up, \u201cthere was talk of the underground complexes in Moscow, Berlin, and Alaska.\u201d Everyone looked at her as if she\u2019d grown a second head.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere ain\u2019t no fuckin\u2019 underground utopias, goddammit!\u201d Jordan shouted, making most of us jump from his sudden explosion. \u201cThere\u2019s no Captain Johnny Hero coming in from deep space with a ragtag fleet of misfits to save us at the last moment. There ain\u2019t no fuckin\u2019 cigar-chomping, hardass colonel assembling a crack team of special operations spooks to blow up the Kai main generator or power source or whatever the fuck, so we can win the war. The war is fuckin\u2019 over! We lost! We backed the wrong horse, and now we\u2019re fucked! Get used to it!\u201d<\/p>\n

The camp was quiet other than the light rustling of the pine trees in the breeze. Corporal Jordan\u2019s face was red, his angry glare directed at Kirilenko for a good fifteen seconds before slowly passing over the rest of us, as if daring any of us to deny the truth of his words.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d Helen whispered, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.<\/p>\n

I gave her shoulders a squeeze, and she nearly hugged my ribs to the breaking point. No one said anything, no one moved, no one wanted to break the silence. Finally, Sergeant Vasquez cleared his throat.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to at least get the fuck out of here. I want to be fifteen miles away from here by the time night falls. Those bastards are hard enough to fight in the daytime. They\u2019ve got proper tech that can spot us in the dark like we\u2019re holding a fusion torch.\u201d He looked at Sergeant Lowell, only a First Sergeant, but it was enough to be the senior officer. Lowell nodded his head. \u201cRight. Lofgren and Hollingsworth and Goldman, you three are on 300 duty. Pack \u2018em up and get \u2018em ready to move. Bishara, Monohan, and Grummond, do your best to wipe any trace of our existence from this spot. The rest of you, get suited up. We\u2019re moving out in ten minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(First chapter of a nearly finished post-apocalyptic, alien invasion, military science fiction novel. Not sure why I can no longer get proper formatting in these posts anymore…) ONE I watched the endless lines of humans allow themselves to be herded … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,6,5],"tags":[70,412,415,409,413,406,410,174,243,404,414,407,408,403,68,411,405],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=820"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":821,"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions\/821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}