The Last Charge (The Nameless War Trilogy Book 3) (25 page)

“May God have mercy on their souls,” Caple said quietly.

Bielski found himself desperately hoping the end would be quick, that the alien ship would fire and that the explosion would be for him at least, fatal. Better that than seeing the station hull split open and being blown screaming into the void. Instead more alien ships arrived, two immediately left, heading in the direction of the second harvester, while the largest ship edged alongside the station. Bielski only became aware that Nastya had managed to get onto the command deck when she slipped her hand into his.

There was no defence against the boarders as they burned through the hull. If anyone had seriously considered armed resistance, the casual destruction of the harvester put an end to it. But that reluctance didn’t save the first half dozen people the aliens encountered. A wave of humanity fled from the invaders. On the monitors, Bielski could see the space suited aliens spread out, clearly exploring the station. After the first few deaths, the aliens largely ignored those humans they happened across. Only when someone got in their way by accident or design did they fire. But when they did, they murdered without hesitation. Finally, twenty minutes after boarding, the first of them arrived on the command deck. Everyone backed away, keeping as much distance as they could until they were all crowded into a corner. The creatures, with their strange quadruped bodies and almost snake like heads, looked around. Their interest seemed focused on the technology of the station, but eventually their attention shifted to its inhabitants. One of them advanced on them.

“Please,” Caple rasped, “we are peaceful.”

The alien paused as if considering Caple’s words. It then prodded Nastya with the muzzle of its gun, watching Caple, as if seeking a reaction.

“For God’s sake, no one move, don’t do anything,” Caple said, keeping as still as possible. The alien stepped back and then gestured towards the hatch out of the command deck.

Bielski was herded along with the rest back towards where the alien’s airlock had punched through the skin of the station. When they reached the lock, the person at the head of the column hesitated. Bielski had just time to recognise it was Brand, before the closest alien levelled its weapon and gunned him down. Then it gestured to the next person. No one dared even glance at Brand’s remains as they drifted away, leaking blood. The rest meekly made their way down into the alien ship and into what was clearly a cargo bay. As the hatch closed behind them, Bielski held his wife and looked around him and saw friends and neighbours, some streaked in blood, theirs and that of others. The air was already thick with the smell of fear and urine. But many of the population of Junction were missing. The aliens couldn’t have got them all.
We should have hid
, Bielski thought as he held Nastya close.

With all electronics stripped from them by force, it was impossible to determine the passage of time. Only the pull of ship’s acceleration gave any sense of movement. The lights went on and off at irregular intervals, while food and water, which clearly came from Junction’s stocks, was occasionally pushed in through the hatch. Just as clearly, there wasn’t enough of it for all of them. The first of the fights was between two of the mothers who hadn’t made it into the harvester. Each accused the other of stealing food and the nutty bar over which they fought was smashed apart before they could be separated.

How long they were in the hold was anyone’s guess, several weeks at least. There was never the familiar jolt of a jump drive but even so, no one doubted that they were far removed from Junction and probably well beyond the scope of human space. Finally, from somewhere beyond their prison, Bielski heard the unmistakable echoing rings of a docking system engaging.

“Wake up,” he said quietly to Nastya. When she started to speak he put a hand over her mouth. “We need to stay in the middle of the group. It will be safer there.”

Her mouth tightened and she nodded. It was an animal instinct. To be at the edge risked being cut out from the herd. Survival meant that where possible, those who had once been friends, neighbours and people, should be now looked upon as shields.

Again at gunpoint, they were herded out the stinking cargo bay that had been their home. As they reached a ladder, Bielski felt the tug of gravity for the first time since they had been driven out of Junction’s centrifuge. There was obviously no centrifuge here but by the time Bielski reached the bottom, he could just as clearly feel that he was pulling about half Earth gravity. After weeks with only intermittent acceleration gravity, Bielski’s legs shook under the familiar strain but there was no time to acclimatise. All he could do was hold Nastya close as the guards, now armed with some kind of electrical baton, forced them on through several separate airlocks and into a sterile set of chambers. From behind, Bielski heard shouting and screaming. Caple and several others were forced through before the hatch closed and locked behind them. One of the women threw herself at the lock, screaming and clawing at it until the metal was streaked with her blood.

“What happened?” Bielski asked.

Caple shook his head, “They took Chris, Maria, Lana... and one of the children.”

Shortly afterwards the lights all went out. In the dark Bielski held his wife tight as he closed his eyes and desperately tried to block out the sobs and cries of those around him. After who knows how long, an exhausted sleep claimed him.

Bielski was woken by the rough shake of Caple’s hand. While he’d been asleep, a single light had come on, which offered just enough illumination to move around.

“We need to talk,” he said quietly.

Bielski nodded and carefully disengaged from Nastya. He followed Caple as they both picked their way through the sleeping bodies to a corner of the room. There were two objects protruding from the wall. One seemed to be a tap and sink, the other a toilet of some kind. As they waited for the others to make their way over, he noticed for the first time Cable that was injured. There was a burn through his jacket at about kidney height and he was holding himself rigid. The flesh below already looked inflamed.

The group mostly consisted of what was left of the Council, along with a few other senior members of the colony. Most of them already looked like mere shadows of their former selves.

“We shouldn’t do this,” said Abigail Petra, “we could attract their attention.”

“We’re here to get attention. Nothing we can do will make us of less interest,” Caple said bluntly. “We need to discuss what to do.”

“Do! There’s nothing we can do! They’re armed, we’re locked in a box!” Petra’s voice rose. Around them some of the sleepers stirred. Caple clamped a hand over her mouth and scowled.

“What are you suggesting? An attack?” Bielski asked, feeling both a weak stirring of hope and a terrible fear.

“If we time it right we might catch them by surprise,” said Mario Villeneuve. “Depends how many there are and whether we can get weapons.” 

“If we get that kind of opportunity, we’ll take it,” Caple said without conviction. “But we won’t get that chance. We’ve been brought here for a reason. We’re lab rats now. We’re to be used for experiments.”

It was a thought that no one had dared speak before now. The idea of being taken by aliens was the subject of years of overblown films and books. But for them it was a frightening reality.

“No, no!”
Petra replied. “No civilised people…”

“Civilised people? Civilised people wouldn’t have gunned poor Brand down! These are not people. They’re monsters and we’re in their power!” Villeneuve hissed before turning back to Caple. “Go on.”

“The way I see it we have a responsibility to save some of us, the only way we can.”

Bielski followed the other man’s gaze and felt his stomach twist. There weren’t many children left. Most had been lost with the harvester but eleven had made it this far, ranging from infants to early teens.

“Oh God!” murmured Bielski.

“No, we... we can’t do that! It’s monstrous!”
Petra choked.

“They can go out easy at our hands... or slow at theirs.”

Caple turned away and leaned his head against the wall.

“No. we can’t even think such a thing,” Villeneuve objected. “Someone will come, someone will rescue us. The
Battle Fleet…”

“The Fleet!”

Caple spun round and for a moment Bielski thought he would attack Villeneuve. He placed a restraining hand on Caple’s chest. The other man shook it off, but made no move towards Villeneuve.

“Where was the fleet when they came? Where was the feet when those of us who were not murdered, were taken from our homes? No, there is no one coming for us. No one knows where we are.
We
don’t know where we are.”

“We cannot ask mothers to kill their own children.” Villeneuve persisted as others nodded or murmured their agreement.

Caple looked at them, his expression grim. “We’ll wish we had,” he said.

A few hours later they came and took Villeneuve.

___________________________

Supposedly a man needed two thousand five hundred calories per day to maintain weight, a woman two thousand. Someone had worked out that while the human food from Junction provided that on average, they were now getting about fifteen hundred. No one on Junction had been fat. The station had been a working colony that kept people lean and as the weeks crept by, Bielski watched as what little fat anyone had wasted away. Faces became thinner and slowly people went from thin to looking starved. When the human food ran out, their captors began serving alien food. The stuff was fairly tasteless but the portion sizes went up, which raised morale for a few days. Then people started getting the runs. The alien food probably contained little a human digestive tract could recognise as nutrition. Although the portion sizes continued to increase, people began to realise that merely meant starving to death in the slowest way possible. The children were the worst to watch, lively little misses and mischievous small boys faded to ghosts of themselves.

Every few days, the aliens would come to inspect them. Most were dressed in blue sealed environmental suits, armed with shock batons that formed a perimeter around two or three individuals in yellow suits that Bielski assumed were some kind of officers or high ranking officials. On the third such visit, one of the younger men experienced a rush of blood to the head and attempted to attack one of the yellow suits. A strike from a shock baton floored him. The yellow suit issued some kind verbal instruction in a voice that sounded like a broken bellows. In response, six of the guards switched off their batons and methodically beat the young man to death.

That night Caple came to Bielski.

“The last of the mothers have agreed,” he said quietly.

Nastya had been sitting beside Bielski, now she got up and moved to the other side of the room. Caple watched her for a moment before turning back to Bielski.

“What do you need from me?” Bielski asked.

“They’ll probably try to stop us. I’m getting together a few people to block the hatch for as long as they can. Give us time to get this done. You understand you could get hurt or killed.”

Despite the warning, Bielski felt relief. He was afraid of what Caple might ask him to do. The other man must have seen it in his eyes because he clapped him awkwardly on the shoulder.

“I wouldn’t ask that of you. You are a good man Mateusz.”

Maybe he didn’t mean it or maybe he did, but the way Caple said
good
, sounded more like
weak
.

“The mothers then…”

“No,” Caple shook his head. “No child’s last sight in this world should be their mother hurting them.”

With half a dozen others, Bielski stood ready at the door and listened to eleven pitiful little sounds.

If they noticed, the aliens made no attempt to interrupt. Only hours later did one of the yellow suits enter. Caple stood, defiant in the centre of their room. Before him lay the bodies of the children. The alien looked at the bodies and then at Caple. Was it puzzled, angry or merely confused? It motioned forward several guards to remove the bodies, then after a few minutes the alien turned and left.

The days, weeks, months all trailed into one another. The deaths of the children marked the final end of any kind of community. Even if the aliens took the deaths of the children calmly, they weren’t prepared to see their lab animals all kill themselves. Shortly afterwards they were stripped of all remains of their clothing and fitted with a metallic bracelet. At a single press of a button, their mag-lock would pin them to the wall. They learned to either hold it until the guards released them to eat, or soil themselves then sit in their squalor all day. Some simply gave up and as they sickened the aliens took them. Finally they came for Bielski and Nastya, who along with four others were dragged out.

The chamber was both a medical room and horror show. The bodies of two of those who had gone before them lay on medical slabs, their chests opened up for study. A pair of aliens, this time dressed in green, awaited them. One of the men with them struggled and screamed as he was forced into one of six glass boxes, still determined to cling to life.