Under the Canopy (20 page)

It didn't even budge. R'lok pushed forward and hit me in the head once more.

I fell, clutching the ax. My nose broke, I could feel wet blood inside my skull. The third headshot would be my undoing. R'lok snarled and raised his dart for the killing blow. He gripped it with both hands, one on the barrel and the other covering the hole on the other end, and rained it down. Everything whirled around us; the forest, the sky, the black soil. I heard the roar of the crowd, but they seemed so far away, as if on another planet. The dark silhouette loomed over me. Time slowed down. The metal blade started its mesmerizing descent.
No!
Pushing with my legs, I rolled away as the blade dug into the soil where my body had been. The ax was in my hand. It was already moving. R'lok turned to look at me, pulling the bayonet out the ash. Our eyes met.

(Ready to do this, roomie?)

The ax found its mark.

The spring of time unwound. The ax was wedged into the alien's side. I heard the ribs crack. The alien hissed and fell to his knees. The blade buried itself to the shaft into his flesh. Yellow blood rivered down and leaked on the black ash, turning it into mud. I tried to jerk the ax out of him, but couldn't do it. The strength left me. R'lok tried to catch my leg. I let go of the handle and made distance between us.

The square grew dead silent.

R'lok coughed and wheezed. Then he vomited blood. Wiping his mouth, he dropped on the ground and seated himself. The ax stuck out of his side like a third arm. I stood and watched, my chest, face and foot throbbing. There was not just hate, but sorrow and regret in his gaze. I felt pity for my enemy.

R'lok roared and arched backward. He raised the dart and threw it at me. The knife went into my stomach with a dull thump.

I fell on the ground. The guts were burning. I was already dead, I knew it. I looked at R'lok. He was lying face down in the ash, a yellow puddle leaking out of his mouth. Soon I'd join him.

The crowd started to scream. They pointed at me and shook their spears, but not a single one flew at me. They waited for me to go by myself. They still believed in thundergod magic.

The wrist communicator started to beep. I looked at it, not realizing what it meant.

And then there was thunder.

I raised my head. The projectile left a smoke trail in the air and exploded over the crowd. A yellow jellyfish opened up over the aliens and stretched its tentacles to them. They watched it in awe, unable to flee or attack. When the tentacles touched them, the aliens started to burn, screaming. Phosphorus.

An army floater appeared over the village and was joined by another. They descended upon their prey. A whistle, a clap, and a whole part of the village, along with huts and people, was torn off the ground and launched into the air.

I looked at the ongoing massacre and realized that I needed to do one last thing before I was saved. Clutching the dart, and my guts for that matter, I crawled to the dead R'lok. The barrel dragged on the ground, making the knife move inside of me. I gritted my teeth and held the scream inside. When I reached the alien, the village was turned into an inferno. I didn't look at it, but could feel the heat. I heard the rattling of machine guns. It didn't matter. Not now.

I reached R'lok and grabbed the ax handle to steady myself. Turning the body, I found what I wanted. The flashlight was now in my hand. I closed my fingers over it.

I heard footsteps behind me and a mechanical voice said, 'Sir, are you alright?'

I gasped for air and collapsed on my back. The sky was swarmed by army machines spitting fire.

A soldier in body armor stood over me, his machine gun strapped to the Exo-frame. He saw my wound and yelled into his radio, 'MEDIC, ASAP!'

I closed my eyes and went to sleep to the sound of roaring engines and crackling firearms.

When I came to my senses, different people started to come in and out. Some of them were doctors, some the military. They asked me about the incident. I told them everything. Then I was left alone.

A couple of weeks passed. No one visited me. The doctors went at me. When the modern medical science got done with me, I looked the same as when I arrived in Safun. They reconstructed my face, healed the wounds and erased the scars. Bastards!

I was kept in a separate section and unable to interact with anyone. So I spent my days thinking. I was appalled at what happened and what I did. I thought a lot about R'lok. And Edlon. And Ort. And everyone else. I was a war criminal. Their deaths haunted me. All of them were on my conscience due to my recklessness and stupid ideas. Stupid me extrapolated my cartoonish concepts of "noble savages" and "evil businessmen" on the living people. I accused other people of puttering while I had a severe case of it.

I toyed with the idea of suicide for a while. That would have been easy. I was in a hospital after all. Too much morphine and bye-bye, cruel world. I got better, eventually.

The realization came that we all had fallen victims of the same thing. Edlon, R'lok, Ort, the sawmill workers, the natives, even me. We lived in a world created by fear. That needed to be changed. I didn't know how yet, but I had a goal in life at last.

Then one day a balding man came to visit me. He was an army official and treated me with respect. He told me everything I missed on and made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

Remember the secret thing under Ort's house? That's what saved me. When my cabin blew up, an army satellite registered the explosion. This small metal box suspended in emptiness sent the signal to the high command. They thought that there was a massive attack on their "thing" and ordered their troops to protect it. So they dropped on the scene in force and searched the area. Obviously, they didn't find terrorists, but they stumbled upon Ort's body. Other cabins were checked and discovered to be empty.

After that the brave soldiers arrived at the sawmill. There they found bodies, more bodies and some natives who were eliminated on sight. They suspected an alien insurrection and started to comb the area. Eventually, they caught my signal. You already know the rest.

The village was leveled to the ground. As was the surrounding forest. Someone up there decided that the incident was too much and some measures had to be taken.

First, complete cleansing. All surviving aliens were rounded up and culled. It took some time, but nothing compares to a determined soldier. I'm literally the sole survivor. However, they didn't get satisfied with just shooting the natives.

Second, a complete hush-hush. Someone up there decided that incident was too much for the public. About a hundred humans died at the hand of the "savage" aliens - that information would have led to outbreaks of violence against all non-humans. About six hundred Safunians died at the hands of the army — the brass would have been eaten alive by mass media and rights organizations, and I'm not even talking about ghetto riots. So they made it look like a natural catastrophe happened. In other words, they burned the whole area. A forest fire at the end of winter. What a long shot! No evidence survived. That included the bodies of my friends.

I got a whiff of a rumor that one general K.P. Aster pulled some strings and removed the sword of Damocles from over my head. Not far, like five inches to the right. Instead of life imprisonment I got a medal for "heroism in the face of adversity," was stripped of rank and discharged from the army. They promised to give me a monetary compensation, which I got just a week later. I signed a non-disclosure agreement. I was never to talk or mention the incident, to distance myself from the people involved and never approach their relatives.

In the end, I've lost everything I had except for the flashlight. No one deemed it evidence or anything important. Lucky me.

Three months after the incident, I was released from their web, a clean-slate man with nowhere to go. That was when I decided to write this book.

I holed up, lying low, and got to work. Fortunately, all my files were in the cloud, so I easily restored them. When I had doubts about making all of this public, I'd look at the flashlight and at the photo of Edlon holding that fish. People must know the truth. I hope that this story will show them both sides, and they'd come to right conclusions. Maybe I'm wrong, and I just wrote a bomb that would start a widespread riot. I don't know, I'm a mere human.

So what happens next?

I'll go to Loting. Visit Edlon's parents and tell them what happened to their son. While I'm there, I'll maybe call on Ned and check on his house and the pug. I hope he realized his dream.

After that, I'll acquire a new ID and a new face.

After that, I'll upload this book on the Web.

After that, I'm gone into the ether. I won't disclose here what I'm going to do and where I'll be; they'll come after me, sure as death. But I'll be there. Maybe you'll even pass me in the street and won't know it.

This book is my last courtesy to those who died on Safun.

For all the natives and the sawmill workers.

For that guy who kept wiping his nose.

For Lutice Morkan.

For Fomas Pimock.

For Ort Kloburn.

For R'lok.

For Edlon Tepesh.

Wealder out.