Supplanted

We had taken fifty human prisoners, half of them wounded, and no enemy plant prisoners; they had all been exterminated. It was strange how much more easily genocide had been achieved than I had anticipated. Our side had suffered just less than twenty percent casualties, and many of my young troops were still spoiling for a fight. It was difficult keeping them from executing the last remaining remnants of enemy resistance.

After evacuating the wounded back to our landing zone, I was left with twenty one able bodied humans to interrogate. While they were all assembled together, I decided to give them all something to think about. I had discarded the bullhorn, so I had to shout through my gas mask.

“I have just one question that I will be asking each of you individually to answer. You may start formulating your responses now. That question is, ‘Why?’”

The twenty one mostly civilian science types (I assumed that they were, as they weren’t in military uniforms and didn’t act like soldiers) looked at each other while their military allies stared straight ahead and pretended not to have heard me. One of the white coated civilians braved to ask, “Why, what?”

“Why you created an army to be used against your own people. Why a war was fought. Why our government would allow this? Why, not to put too fine a point on it, did so many people, and . . . creatures have to die?” The reaction I got from them was the one I had expected: disbelief.

“You don’t have to answer me now; I will be seeing you each in turn one at a time. Then you can tell me what part you played in this waste of life and resources. You may tell me whatever you like; this is not Nuremburg, or any other type of official inquisition. I will accept that you only were following orders, but I will expect you to tell me who gave those orders, and why you personally thought that they were legal and justified.” The prisoners began to murmur. I had Sergeant Vickers silence them.

Vickers was an imposing figure of a man. Eighteen or nineteen years old, he was over six feet tall and as muscular as they come. The trickle of blood from a cut over his right eye and the many stains on his uniform from close combat (which he obviously won) added greatly to his intimidation factor. The prisoners didn’t have to be told again.

We lined up our catch and led them silently back to our landing zone. I kept the military types separated from each other, just in case they got the idea that they could escape; or worse, try something stupid. I rode at walking pace on the back of a four wheeler with a rear mounted machine gun trained on the prisoners. I could tell that our captives wondered if I would gun them down or let them live. They needn’t have worried about that, I had no intention of shedding the last blood of this conflict.

When we arrived at the landing zone, we were greeted by the entire rank and file of the Defiant who had disembarked and taken up defensive positions around the base of operations. I expected them to greet us warmly. I had at least expected a cheer of victory, maybe some congratulations. Instead, I was met and stopped by Captain Standish out in front of their formation. He didn’t look happy to see me, and what he said to me made me unhappy to see him as well.

“Colonel Johansson, you are hereby ordered to remand custody of your prisoners to the Earth Command representative here on this planet. I, Captain Michael Standish, am that representative. Any attempt to disobey this command and we will be forced to open fire.”

His troops cocked their weapons and took up aggressive postures. My tired army also moved in a similar fashion. I stood up on the back of the four-wheeler and raised my hand as a signal for them to stop. We were too tired and depleted to take on the fresh troops of the Defiant. My troops accepted the signal; I than addressed my adversary.

“You may have our prisoners,” I said to him. “But first, I require an explanation.”

The Earth Captain smirked. “You will not get one. Relinquish them to my custody or die. You have thirty seconds to comply.” He then looked at his watch and ignored everything else. I ordered the prisoners to be handed over.

We watched helplessly as the Defiant loaded the prisoners, along with the wounded that had been sent ahead, then their troops back into the bowels of their pristine carrier; all the while with their weapons trained on us. Then they launched into space to join the thirty four other useless hulks that came with us from the Alpha sector for reasons I have yet to determine or understand. I was back in my ready room minutes later. I had General Josten on the vid-comm seconds after my arrival. What he told me did not make me any happier, just angrier.

“I’m afraid we’ve been outmaneuvered on this one, Jimmy,” my old friend told me flatly. “Apparently, Earth Command had more than one secret order programmed against us. It seems that, in the event that we actually did win the war, all evidence of human involvement was to be whisked back to the Alpha sector so that it could be plausibly denied.

“Luckily, the other Earth ships were not about to try and fight us after the war. I think that’s because they didn’t expect us to be so successful and still be a match for them, or that they are under some other secret orders to betray us later. In any case, they can have their precious traitorous prisoners and take them wherever they want. I, personally, am just glad that it’s all over.”

Oh how wrong he was.

Entry 13a

Final surprises

Mopping up procedures took the better part of two days on the alien world. We made certain that this planet would never again be used against us or any other element of the human race. It may seem vengeful, but we razed the surface of the planet and blew gaping holes in its crust that started violent volcanic eruptions that did more damage than our entire fleet had. With our bloodlust satisfied, we returned to our ships for the voyage home. The Epsilon sector was now officially dead.

Our return trip was a mixture of celebration and anger. We knew that we would have to traverse (or avoid) the Alpha sector once again. We also knew that we would not be allowed to take the direct route through it. What we didn’t quite expect was what we found at the edge of the system when we got there.

Our Space-nar was trained on the course home, just in case there were more enemy surprises that we may have missed. There weren’t; but when we came to the border of the Alpha sector, we identified the welcoming committee of twenty five Earth carriers that waited there for us. Some of them were ones that had joined us (and betrayed us) on our invasion mission just a few days earlier. What we didn’t expect to find was what floated in space between us and them.

Fifty human bodies lay between our fleet and the Earth Defense forces. I recognized all of them; they were my prisoners; all dead now. A fleet wide comm. signal came over every speaker in every ship. It was Admiral Hidalgo once again, and this time, he was angrier and more bent on our destruction.

“Attention renegade colonial ships,” our one time superior began from his command carrier: The Royal Dragon. “You are to surrender immediately and be taken under armed escort to the prison satellite on Jupiter colony to await your individual trials for treason. General Eric Josten will be arrested and handed over to Earth Central Command to answer to the charges of treason and war crimes; namely, the murder of fifty unarmed civilians as a demonstration of his contempt for Earth gov.”

The Admiral was not permitted to finish his ultimatum. The Wild Man had launched all of her fighters, as had the General’s command carrier and several other carriers, including the Faust. All of our carriers were moving into attack positions.

The Earth ships were unprepared for this sudden assault. Four of our best carriers moved into position to engage our new enemy at point blank range. Our civilian ships that were unarmed and filled with our troops moved to the rear and were protected by eight other carriers. The Faust flew to engage the nearest Earth carrier; the Libertine. In moments, a new battle was being waged. It didn’t last long.

Our now seasoned fighters disabled or destroyed every ship that opposed us. The suddenness of our attack had caught all of the Earth ships with their full complements of fighters still docked. The Wild Man pounced on the carrier closest to it and split it into three pieces in an instant. The Enterprise had moved in between two other Earth carriers and opened fire at point blank range, riddling them with holes. The two carriers exploded silently. The Faust took out three carriers in a row before any one of them could launch a fighter against us. More than half the Earth fleet had been destroyed in less than two minutes. The remaining carriers had rallied around the Royal Dragon and were still trying to launch their fighters.

Only eight enemy carriers remained as our fighters picked off every one of their fighters. At the end of the battle, only four Earth ships were left operational. Only one of our fleet; the Courage, had been destroyed. It met its end by ramming into the Defiant and several other enemy ships as it could at full speed before it burned out in space. Finally the last Earth carrier had signaled its surrender, and then General Josten made his own ultimatum.

“Admiral Hidalgo and any other worthless trash that follow him and his wretched, lying, murdering, foul, bastard of an Earth government . . . We of the outer colonies spit in your faces. Consider this our declaration of independence and our personal resignations from your fucked-up defense force. You scum may have your Epsilon and Alpha sectors, but the Beta, Delta and Gamma sectors are now off limits to you and your vile spawn, now and forever.

“If you attempt to send any ships to our sections of the galaxy, we will destroy them. If you make any attempts to contact us, we will tell you where and how far up your collective assholes to shove it. Mark my words, Earth is dead to us. This is General Eric Josten, over . . . and . . . out!”

Our fleet left our former allies adrift in space. We arrived home to Wilson’s World three days later, a lot less than festive.