John Hemry: The Rift

The other soldiers came on carefully, still dodging forward until each darted inside the doorway. As he waited for them and watched for trouble, Johansen saw that the building’s interior consisted of a big main room which stretched all the way across its width and perhaps a third of the way back, where an inside wall showed hallways and doors leading to what must be living quarters and offices. A series of big windows ran along the front and partway down the sides, but only two doors were visible, the main entry and a side door. The tables and chairs inside had been pushed around, and the big flat display on the back wall sat dark and silent. Singh entered last, studying the room somberly.

The woman had gone to the back and came out again with two other civilians, both men, one young and the other well past middle age. “I’m Ariana Tisrok,” she said. “This is Juni Garios and Scorse Kalinga.”

“Sergeant Singh,” he introduced himself. “Suppose you tell us what happened here?”

Ariana slumped into a chair. “We don’t know much.”

The younger man, Juni, nodded. “We received the recall. Everybody was to report back to Amity on an emergency basis. But the truck we have here was out on a research run.” He hesitated, his eyes going to Ariana, then Scorse. “It had, um, four people with it.”

“Including my husband,” Ariana said in a low voice. Taking a deep breath, she continued. “We tried calling our truck. Nothing. We tried getting a fix on its position, but the transponder was out. It should have been back before sundown that day but it never showed. We called Amity, to tell them we needed a ride and asking for more details. We never heard any reply. My—the people with the truck would have been able to walk back here within a day if it had broken down.”

“Our truck might’ve made it to Amity,” Scorse said stubbornly. “My wife—” He stopped talking for a moment. “They might have made it to Amity,” he repeated, the simple statement sounding like a prayer.

“What reason did Amity give for the recall?” Singh asked.

The researchers exchanged glances. “Something about crowds of Izkop. Large numbers of them,” Juni finally offered. “ ‘Tribal situation uncertain.’ That was the last thing I heard.”

“What were you supposed to do if the Izkop turned hostile?”

“Hostile?”

“Yes,” Singh said patiently. “If the Izkop attacked, what were you supposed to do?”

“The Izkop attacked?” Ariana asked.

Johansen didn’t quite suppress an inarticulate grunt of disbelief at the question. Rather than answer Ariana directly, Singh pointed upward. “The regional base at Mandalay, about ten light-years from here, got an emergency pulse from the human base on this planet through the quantum entanglement comms. Those can’t provide details, but it was the most urgent emergency pulse that could be sent, the one that calls for military assistance as quickly as possible. We’re from the on-call battalion at Mandalay. They loaded us on the Saratoga and we jumped here. Once inside the star system we started picking up messages your people had begun sending over a week before, talking about danger from the Izkop and requesting emergency protection.”

The three civilians looked at each other in amazement, then Juni faced Singh again. “We never heard those messages. Not long after the recalls, the satellite relays went down, and without those we haven’t been able to pick up anything.”

“You don’t have an emergency transmitter/ receiver?” Archer asked.

“Yes, but—” Juni gave the other civilians an embarrassed look. “It was stored in one of the sheds. Everything in that shed got ransacked and smashed the night after we heard the recall, before we knew the relays were down.”

“So the Izkop know you’re here?” Johansen asked.

“We don’t know that the Izkop were responsible for that.”

“Who else could have done it?” Ariana asked. “The Izkop knew we were here then. In the days since we’ve tried to make it look like we left, because… there wasn’t much else we could do.”

“And because you insisted on it,” Juni grumbled.

“If we’d been alone,” Scorse said, “we’d have set out for Amity on foot, but not with ten children to worry about.”

“Ten children?” Singh asked. “Are they all yours?”

“None of them are ours. It was a field trip,” Ariana explained. “Normally we wouldn’t have children here. They were staying for a few nights.”

“No other adults or transport with them?”

“The two adults escorting the children were also out with our truck. An all-terrain bus brought the children in and was supposed to pick them up three days later. It’s not that long a drive from Amity.”

Adowa, who had been leaning against one wall peering suspiciously out a window, now looked at Ariana. “It’s a long walk. How many kids were still in Amity?”

“None. A few teens. All of the preteens are here.”

“The Izkop hit the valley while all the kids were here?”

“I suppose. Hit?” Ariana stared at Adowa, then at Singh. “The Izkop attacked Amity?”

All of the other soldiers looked at Sergeant Singh, who exhaled heavily before replying. “Yes.”

“Did they kill anyone?”

Burgos made a choking sound.

Singh nodded twice. “There’s nothing left living at Amity except Izkop. Lots of Izkop. They blew up the buildings there, they self-destructed the equipment, and they seem to have burnt out everything in orbit.”

None of the civilians spoke for a long moment. Ariana recovered first. “They’re… all… dead?”

“Yes, ma’am. As far as we know, the only humans left alive on this planet are in this building.”

“I… I don’t…” Juni made a baffled gesture. “If the Izkop are that dangerous, why did your commander only send eight of you here? And on foot?”

The sergeant spoke carefully. “I said every human still alive is here. We’re all that’s left of our unit. The Izkop were waiting for us. They turned your systems on us and took down the big ship that brought us, as well as about half the dropships carrying us to the surface. Half the battalion died that way. The Izkop swarmed the other dropships and anyone who got out onto the surface. Nobody had time to form up before they got overrun, so our individual firepower advantage wasn’t enough.”

The civs fell silent again. Juni just sat as if unable to absorb the news. Ariana kept blinking back tears. Scorse put his face in his hands, shuddering with what seemed like anger rather than grief, then shot to his feet, his eyes blazing. “You got away!” Scorse accused. “How the hell did you get away? You just ran, didn’t you? You left everyone else to die and—”

He stopped talking as the barrel of Burgos’ rifle came to rest a millimeter from his nose. “Shut up,” she breathed.

“Private Burgos.” Singh’s voice was calm and authoritative. “Stand down.”

She held the weapon in the man’s face a moment longer, then stepped back, lowering it. “If you say that again, I’ll kill you,” she told Scorse in a cold voice. “We fought.”

“Stand down,” Singh repeated. “Sir, I would strongly advise you not to question the courage of my soldiers. We left most of our platoon dead and barely shot our own way out of there. There was nothing else we could have done but die on the spot. Now, if we’re lucky, we’ll be able to hold out here until another ship gets in. When the Saratoga doesn’t send a routine status pulse back to Mandalay they should send another ship to check on things. If we’re lucky, someone could be here in a week.”

“And if we’re not lucky?” Juni asked.