Because Someone Had To [ Part 3 ]

By MachDhai

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The kil'tan child's carapace rattled as its plates flexed and clacked together nervously. Even the children knew what the Humans had lost in the war. Its mandibles clicked, and an uncertain hiss followed, as the child struggled to understand how to word its question.

So the teacher continued, taking the class' attention away from the shaken kil'tan child. Children were mean, even alien children. "The Humans didn't fight just with ships and guns. Their most dangerous weapon to the Council was words. Freedom, equality, rights. Ideas are much harder to fight."

None on the Council could have imagined the war with the Terrans would last so long. Fleets had been shattered in the voids of space, worlds had burned under the fire of Senate-species guns. The horrors of biological warfare, and the devastation of nuclear fire, always felt on distant Human worlds, as the Terrans were pushed back, demanding blood for every foot they lost.

After ten years, the protests and riots had begun among the Senate worlds; civilians and slaves crying out against the war. Higher taxes, forced conscription, rationing. Smuggling became rampant; the very pirates the Council's patrol ships had once hunted had been left unchecked as the patrol fleets were drawn into the conflict.

And with the rise of the black market and smuggling rings, Terran's war opened onto a new front. Council propaganda spoke of grand victories and the ever-nearing end of the war. The arrogant Humans were surrendering by the millions; entire planets throwing off the yoke of an oppressive government to submit to their rightful place at the feet of the Council and Senate.

The Humans smuggled in unfiltered footage of the battles that were raging. Of field hospitals where Human and Senate-fleet crews were tended. Combat reporters interviewed defectors and rebels who had joined the Human cause for freedom in the galaxy. It was propaganda in its own right, but its impact grew with every passing month, every loved one conscripted to the cause, every missed meal or confiscated convenience, taken to the war effort and never seen again. Except, occasionally, on the pirate-smuggled videos from the Humans, someone's lost loved one would be seen in a Human camp, healthy and well-fed.

Comprehensive lists of the names and fates of POWs, a fleeting glimpse of missing loved ones in Human prison camps, receiving medical treatment, and allowances for religious or cultural requests.

And as the protests escalated, teams of Humans and their growing list of allies were smuggled into Council space. They embedded into the local scene and began instructing civilians on how to be heard by their leaders. And when the executions of the most out-spoken began, how to fight back.

The Council's war efforts suddenly found itself torn between the costly battles against the Humans, and the sapping of available manpower as once loyal planets needed ever-enlarging garrisons to keep the slaves and civilians in check.

The first true rebellions began twenty years into the conflict, with the assassination of a Sector Administrator and his aides. In what proved later to be a fatal mistake, the Council launched a kinetic bombardment on the capital where the assassination took place. Millions of civilians were killed in a bid to cover the growing unrest.

It failed.

The Captain sat in a larger chamber of the cave system-turned headquarters of the Feoruta Rebellion. The planet, Feoruta Prime, was the anchor world of one of the Council's largest dedicated military shipyards. Even in the green-tinted light of day, the massive orbital shipyards could be seen around the planet's rocky moon overhead.

There were only twenty Humans on the planet; special forces operatives embedded to assist the local rebel movement, in an entirely advisory role. It was up to the people of Feoruta to strive for their freedoms and equality; the entire Human strategy for a grass-roots and populist movement that belonged to the people it sought to free.

The war was in its twenty-fourth year. Hundreds of Senate planets were torn apart by rebellion. Senate warships had gone rogue, some falling to piracy, and others to raising the flag of rebellion. But the Council's war against the Humans continued to progress, with the colonies of Alpha Centauri and the shipyards of Barnard's Star having fallen to their fleets.

Humanity has held the advantages of quality. Their crews were both better trained and dedicated to the cause. Their leaders are more adaptable and inventive. Human military and technical sciences had far outstripped the Council and Senate races even before the conflict had begun and had only continued to advance.

But they were only one person. A handful of planets compared to what was held under the Council's talons, which had held the advantage of quantity.

He was tasked to advise the Feoruta rebellion; small teams were seeded around the planet, working diligently to train rebel fighters, offering a wealth of experience to their planning sessions, and helping guide the propaganda campaign on the planet. But at the end of the day, the fight was led by the people of Feoruta; as was the case on a hundred planets across Council space.

In an adjacent chamber, a captured military shuttle was being prepped; the rebels had worked hard to prepare for what was to come. A daring raid on the lunar shipyards; a strike to cripple their manufacturing capability. A flotilla of pirate raiders waited in the system's inner asteroid belt, ready to unleash an ancient human weapon on the shipyards, once the rebel team had crippled its central computer and defensive capabilities.

Fireships; a dozen old cargo ships, stripped of all unnecessary systems to make room for explosives and thousands of tons of stone, engines, and powerplants over-clocked and prows covered in thick slabs of crude armor.

As the rebel team readied to board though, they were stopped. The Captain could see what transpired from where he sat and watched with uncharacteristic focus. Screens around the command center were displaying a recorded Council broadcast; they had become increasingly common over the years, especially following anything that could be spun as a victory against the Terran military.

It was the third time it had played that day. Every three hours, every linked monitor on the planet, on every planet in Council space surely, showed the same thing. He hadn't spoken much since the first time it had aired; he hadn't moved from where he sat, simply watching the message.

His sergeant had been the first to shake it off; a smile, a half-hearted comment about propaganda and doctored footage. But like the other two soldiers under his command, something was gone from the sergeant's eyes. He had smiled and clapped the local rebel leaders on the shoulders, urging them back to work. He had gathered the other two Humans in the bunker and had spoken with them.

And the Captain had sat there, watching the video.

The sergeant had spoken to him next; a simple request. He had barely heard what the man had asked, but it couldn't have been anything else. Deployment orders. The sergeant had understood, of course; the Captain couldn't go. The rebel command still needed him, after all. He was a good man and would do his duty. He had to do his children proud, so he could face them one day with his head held high.

And the Captain had nodded, and the sergeant had departed. Two young soldiers in his wake. None had looked back at those monitors and had simply prepared for the mission.

At the shuttle, a kil'tan soldier was stopped by the sergeant, who slapped the large, insectoid ex-slave on its thick-carapaced shoulder, or what passed as to the best of Human conception. He spoke to the rebel team, and two others slowly stepped out of the line to make room for the two Human soldiers. The sergeant spoke to the group and handed something to the kil'tan, and then they boarded the shuttle.

The ramp closed. The engines spooled up, and it was gone.

The Captain watched it go, watched the rebel soldiers approach, the kil'tan carrying an odd green object in one of its primary manipulators. He watched everything but the monitors, as the Council message replayed.

The kil'tan came to the Captain, secondary manipulators scratching its carapace underbelly uncertainly before it held the odd object up for the Captain to see. An ancient style of military flashlight; a simple battery-operated, plastic thing, the illuminator jutting out from the body at a right angle.

The kil'tan spoke in a series of clicks and subdued squeals, which were processed and translated by the Captain's earpiece. "Captain? What is this?"

"A flashlight, soldier. The sergeant calls them torches."

"Why did he give me this? Kil'tan can see in the dark, Sir."

The Captain was quiet a moment, his mind slowly clawing its way from the precipice. Why had the sergeant given up his flashlight to a kil'tan soldier? And then it clicked. The Captain's gaze snapped towards where the shuttle had sat, and he couldn't help but smile, if only for a moment. "Passing the torch. That ass-hat."

On the monitors, it could be seen from orbit. Flashes of light and black smudges of smoke marred the horizon line between day and night. Senate ships sat in high orbit, raining fire onto the birth-world of humanity.

"Councilor? We are receiving incident reports from seven Sector Administrators."

The Silliunce Councillor looked up from his meal, his sharp-fanged snout smeared in blood and sauces. "What now? More fuel shortages? Another failed rebel raid? I do not care! We are celebrating, captain."

The smaller creature fidgeted uncertainly, the longhairs of its ears laying back in fear. But the officer bulled forward; its report was too important. "The Feoruta lunar shipyards are destroyed, Councillor. The Sector Administrator reports that most of the 117th Punitive Fleet was lost in their moorings."

The Silliunce Councillor froze, staring with cold eyes at the captain.

"What?"

"There's more Councillor. The Hentzon Prime Naval Station lost. Siltani Manufacturing Yards, overrun. We've lost contact with the Wourillia Prime Sector Administrator's palace and the garrison has fallen. Cheecarro Prime..."