Master of Violence
by AJ Marks
Part 14
Angie made her way along with Jack back to the town. They had spent some time looking around at nearby areas, and avoiding a couple of patrols of the invaders. They seemed to be wary of Earth creatures, shooting at just about everything including squirrels. While it was a bit amusing for Angie, she quickly recognized the danger despite the fact they had one of their weapons.
Jack had been able to figure out how it worked, and stated it was a similar principle as a gun, shooting some sort of bullet in a magazine. She wasn’t sure about it all, but it seemed to give him something to do, and she found it was amusing to watch as he tried to figure it out.
Now they were scouting out the town for something. Jack seemed to have some sort of plan and it required her phone. He took a few pictures which Angie considered unimportant, including some pictures of the aliens who were patrolling the forest.
They were back during the day and the smell was starting to grow each time they came into the town. She remained quiet but resorted to breathing though her nose as they looked around. He took a few more pictures before they returned to the ruined mall.
“So, what are we doing?” she asked.
“Sending your uncle some pictures of what is going on here,” Jack said.
“You think they don’t know?” Angie asked, wondering how that could happen.
“Well, have you seen a human since all this happened?” Jack asked her.
Angie paused, opening and closing her mouth a few times. They both knew the answer to that, they had not seen anyone at all since it all happened. It was a question she avoided as it brought up what happened to her parents. Were they safe?
Instead of replying she looked down at her phone, the first time she had been back here since she realized her pho9ne buzzed indicating it had a message. Quickly turning it on she spotted her uncle’s texts and quickly read them.
“What’s the situation?” Jack asked after a few seconds of silence.
“They sent a ship to try and talk to the aliens,” Angie said. “It was destroyed.”
Looking up at Jack’s silence she waited a second.
“And they are at war with the aliens,” Angie said.
“No surprise there,” Jack said. “It makes what we’re doing all the more important.”
He quickly took her phone and quickly sent off another text. She watched unsure what he was doing, or which pictures he sent.
“Come on,” he said after a few seconds handing her back the phone. She looked at it seeing that he sent a few pictures of the destruction on the planet, and a couple more of the aliens and of the weapon they used.
They moved on away from the destruction and in a new direction.
“Where are we going now?” she asked.
“Want to check a new place out,” he replied back to her.
She wasn’t sure what he meant but as they moved on trying to stay hidden he stopped, as did Angie. In the middle of town, rising up was a new building, one she never had seen before.
“What is that?”
“Don’t know,” he answered.
It looked like a purple and black needle rising up and towering over everything else. Even from this distance she noticed what appeared to be people working on it.
“Let me see your phone again,” he said.
Angie handed it over watching as he used the camera and zoomed in on the structure.
“Well, there are humans there, so some survived,” he said.
“Why are they building that?” she asked.
“Don’t know, and a few of the other people look odd, like they are not human,” Jack said. “I think we found what we need to do next, see if we can get closer, probably at night.”
Angie wasn’t so sure but remained quiet and wondered what might happen next.
*****
Mark went over the situation and reports before looking over at Victoria. She was efficient in her job, though she might be a bit young for the position. Still Richard recommended her and she was doing a great job. Currently they were going over how quickly the fleet had responded to the threat.
“We need to improve response times,” she said to him.
“They did pretty well, not sure how much faster they could respond aside from having people actually sitting at the stations twenty-four seven,” he replied to her.
He watched as she began her counter argument that they might not have much time if the enemy really attacked them. Mark prepared his own response when his phone went off. Frowning he pulled it out and looked at it and froze.
Opening the texts he scrolled though the pictures before activating the communications.
“Joaquin here,” the reply came.
“Get me HQ, now,” Mark ordered not looking away from the pictures. He noticed the destruction and stopped when he saw one of three humanoid figures with what looked like mohawks made of bone.
“What is it?” Victoria asked.
“We have a face for our enemy,” he said turning the picture to her watching as she went silent.
“How do you know that’s them?” she asked confused.
“Because, this is from my niece on Sierra,” Mark answered as the screen came to life.
“Lieutenant Abrau here,” a man said.
“I’ll be sending down some pictures for intelligence to look over,” Mark said to him.
“Oh?”
“They come from Sierra, including a picture of what these aliens look like and,” Mark paused a moment seeing a strange looking weapon. “And some technology.”
“Some what?” the lieutenant asked.
“Looks like a weapon, a rifle of some sort, might give us a clue to their technology,” Mark replied back to him as he worked to save the pictures so he could send them down as part of a file to intelligence.
“Very well, I’ll let them know to expect the pictures,” the reply came back.
The communications ended as Mark turned back to Victoria who was looking at him strangely.
“You think you can trust this information?” she asked him.
“It’s our best lead so far, and it shows what is going on there right now,” he said, showing her a picture of some ruins.
“You realize by the end of the day those pictures will be everywhere,” Victoria said.
“Yeah, probably,” Mark answered wondering if they would release any of the pictures. The texts going with it were a bit curt, and not quite like his niece, including more information about the weapon than she would ever know. Was she alone or was someone else with her?
Finishing up his message he sent the file off hoping they might be able to actually figure something out along with any information from the texts which might be important.
*****
Jeff made his way to the meeting room having been summoned in the middle of dinner. Seeing the urgency of the message he could not ignore it and said goodbye to his wife and headed back to the capital.
The message said nothing other than it was the highest level meeting. It meant something had happened but what? His mind raced with possibilities of what occurred but nothing logical came to his mind.
Entering the room he noticed he was actually a bit early and only the admiral was there at the moment as they greeted each other.
“What’s this over?” Jeff asked hoping to gain some insight of what happened.
“Gained some new intelligence on our enemy,” Richard said to him.
This perked him up a bit and he wondered if Yissffer said something which indicated the call for such a meeting. Before the admiral could continue Greg walked into the room, along with Toncor and Yissffer.
Two more senators walked in before the President entered and motioned for the admiral to proceed.
“Thirty minutes ago we received these pictures,” Richard said as the screen behind him activated and a picture of a destroyed building came up. “This is of a building on Sierra.”
“How did you get that?” Greg asked sounding a bit skeptical of the picture.
“Admiral Mark has a niece who is still on Sierra and is able to somehow text us,” Richard said. “We’ve scoured the communications network and discovered that there are still a few functioning towers, but we were unable to connect to any devise on the surface, except for hers.”
“Sounds a bit convenient to me,” Greg said. “But what did these pictures show?”
“Aside from the devastation on the surface, these pictures of what was labeled the aliens.”
The picture turned to three aliens, wearing light blue colors and green skin but what was the most notable feature was the bony protrusion which looked like a Mohawk. It gave the aliens a punk rock look to them in a strange, weird way. Was this the alien race?
He looked over to see Toncor looking on but it was Yissffer who seemed to react the most to the picture, he stood very still and stiff.
“You have seen them before?” Richard asked which Yissffer said something in his native tongue making Jeff wish he has his translator.
“He says that is the Dark Race,” the aide said.
“So, we have a face for the enemy now,” Jeff said speaking up.
“It wasn’t all which came, but some information about a weapon they have,” Richard said as another picture of a blue looking weapon appeared on the screen. It looked a bit like a futuristic rifle. “Indications are it uses a type of bullet, has a magazine and is probably similar to our own weapons.”
“Then we can fight them,” Greg said.
“On land, it appears so,” Richard said. “However, their camouflage is very different than ours, as you see it’s a shade of blues, not colors.”
“They could be color blind?” Jeff suggested.
“It’s a possibility, and one we are taking into account, or the uniforms could be a symbol of rank,” Richard replied back to him
“Anything else we could determine from the pictures?” Jeff asked.
“Only that they have destroyed much of the city that was on Sierra,” Richard said. “Its still too limited but we’re unsure of what all happened as intel is still hard to come by.”
“What about releasing this information?” Jeff asked.
“There are some concerns about such leaks, it might endanger our source of information there,” Richard said.
“How? I’m not sure this Dark Race is even here among us,” Jeff replied watching as the admiral thought about it for several seconds.
“It will be discussed later on,” Richard said.
“Is there anything else you can tell us about this?” the President asked.
“Actually, it shows that the buildings were destroyed by orbital bombardment,” Richard said. “Our scientists think they can determine how much destructive force the enemy had when attacking. They might already know what our capabilities are.”
“Why do you say that?” Jeff asked.
“If they search the information they gained on Sierra, they will discover our military forces and what technology we have,” Richard said.
“Then we’re fighting at a disadvantage already,” Jeff replied unsure he like that bit of information.
“Why fight?” Yissffer’s translator asked.
Everyone turned to the alien.
“We don’t give up our home without a fight,” the President replied. “Running would be considered by many as a coward’s way out. And if we don’t stand up who will? You?”
The statement seemed to take Yissffer by surprise as he didn’t reply for several seconds before saying something to the translator who seemed to hesitate for a second.
“You run for freedom to stay alive, we can help you there,” he said before Toncor and his translator spoke up.
“I fear some things are lost in translation.”
Jeff then watched as Yissffer and Toncor spoke rapidly before anyone spoke up again.
“One of your words wasn’t translated as Volorians appear to not have an equivalent word,” Toncor said.
It left Jeff wondering what the word was that wasn’t translated. He hoped to find out.
End part 14