God-Knows-Who from God-Knows-Where

“Estrada! C’mere…”
The sarge called out to me, gesturing with his hand. I rushed over to him, running in a crouched position, carrying my assault rifle in my hands.
“Yeah, sir?”
“I need a runner. You familiar with Fourth Squad?”
“Just with their combat engineer, a Pvt. Novikovna.”
“Right. Well, I need you to get over to their position half a click southwest of our position. They’re holed up in an apartment building, last I heard. Covvies knocked out our communications, don’t know how, and we need to relay to ‘em a message that we just got from HQ. Can ya do it?”
“Yessir.”
“Outstanding. Get to it.”
I ran out of the grocery we took up positions in, crouched behind blasted shelves formerly stocked with foodstuffs of all kinds, ranging from healthy, organic greens to junk food. Some of us capitalized on the chaos and grabbed snacks to munch on, and I’ll admit, I took a packet of gum and a bottle of soda pop.
I liked Polina – that was Pvt. Novikovna’s first name. She and I really hit it off on the transport as we were being ferried to New Brazil.
“What’s your name, friend?” she asked me as we sat beside one another. She caught me in the middle of loading the magazines for my MA5C.
“Leo. You?” The bullets went click, click, click, as they found their place in the magazine.
“Polina.”
“You, uh, you from Earth?”
“No, Beta Gabriel. Why do you ask? Are you an Earthling?”
“Yeah, I’m from New York City.” More bullets went click.
“The Capital? Huh. And now you find yourself all the way out here. In the Outer Colonies. Fighting God-knows-who from God-knows-where.”
“They’re called… the Covenant, I think? I dunno, I heard it from some refugees from New Transoxiana. They were pretty traumatized.”
“From what I heard, they make the Innies look like schoolchildren with BB guns.”
“Innies are schoolchildren with BB guns.”
“Eh, true. You think the Covenant will make it all the way to New Brazil?”
“Judging from the New Transoxianans… I hope not.”
“Me too.”
“Listen, um… you obviously know how far I am from home. Don’t really know anyone else here, ‘cept my squad and I, but they’re a bit…” I glanced over to them, to Harishchandra, Brandt,  Mitsugi, and the sarge. They were… well, they were certainly colorful characters. I kept outta their way enough. “…Well, they’re them.”
“I get it, not exactly the type you mesh with. We can hang more if you want, Leo.”
“Thanks, Polina. You seem like a good person.”
“There’s a maintenance corridor I went into while sightseeing on this ship not too long ago. Meet me back here again in about an hour and I can take you to it, yeah?”
“What for?”
“For anything.”
I raised an eyebrow and smiled. The last round went click. “Sure thing.”
An hour passed, we met, conversed, and then she led me into the maintenance corridor. There we… well… you know. We hit it off. When it was over, we shared a passionate kiss.
“See you on the ground, big boy,” she told me before leaving me in the corridor.
And now I was scampering from building to ruined building, in the wrecked urban landscape that was Sao Felix. Intermittent gunfire, plasma discharges, and explosions echoed throughout the streets, choked with dust, debris, and the dead. Most of them Human.
I stopped as the street I dashed down gave way to a large open plaza, flanked by palm trees. The bright sun betrayed the bleak scene before me: corpses of Humans blanketed the space. I was barely able to see the pavement of the plaza, itself painted red. I had gotten used to the stench by now, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to turn away. I looked in the distance, and saw a blown-out apartment building, and a familiar figure.
Polina. Her neck was gripped by one of those aliens, the big ones with the split jaws. She was at least a foot off the ground. The alien had a sort of red armor on and was speaking that freaky language of theirs, couldn’t tell what he was saying. He seemed to study Polina, as if he was deeply intrigued. Another one like him with the same-colored armor walked beside him, and they had a conversation. The one gripping Polina shrugged. Then, he activated some sort of plasma knife from his wrist, and he stabbed her in the chest. He dropped her, but I knew she was dead before her body hit the ground, joining the rest of Fourth Squad.
Then one of the short ones, the ones wearing those gas mask things, caught sight of me and alerted the rest of them. They started engaging me, and I fired back before slipping into an alleyway.
“I kill you, Human! Human! I kill you!” I heard one of the split jaw aliens yell as he fired wildly at me with his dual-wielded plasma weapons. How they learned English, I’ll never know.
I went back to the sarge.
“Fourth Squad’s KIA. They’re all dead.”
“Fuck. Well, at least you got back safe, Private. Alright, we’ll… we’re falling back. This position’s no good anymore. Second Squad, on me!”
“Yessir!”
I wanted to scream. Cry. Chase after those aliens. But that’d just make me dead, it’d give away my squad’s position, and it’d open up a hole in our already tenuous line of defense. No time for any of that. We followed the sarge.
“I’m sorry, Polina.”
Category:The Weekly