Galactic War Ch. 02

Medics wore green armor, Com's personnel wore red, our demolition crew was yellow, breach team was white, and engineering team was black.

And my suit was special. It could adapt to any of the colors I wanted. And I could practically be a permanent fixture of that team. Since I had plenty experience at least in every area we were operating on.

As a precaution from being targeted by the enemy I pre choose my color while on our station or ship. Even before becoming the leader I added these fixtures and would often play around with suit colors just in case enemy was watching. Leaders of our military wore big beefy suits in combat that accented their role around their peers. In open combat jargon it usually means look at me I'm a target. But some commanders are operated by their narcissistic ability to be annoying as fuck. They have to stand out no matter where they are.

I stand and every gaze in the room for some reason is fixed on me. I put my MG250 rifle on my shoulder holster, where rifles go on our exo suits, my trusty knife on right side boot and a sidearm on my hip holsters. I check my inventory pack. Everything I might need in case of emergency. Next I choose my color I set it to black to match Anna's skin and armor. The five members apparently were breach heavy team. So they were probably added having that in mind. Almost time to set off.

"Let's roll people" I commanded. Everyone followed me and I stood still suddenly, "I have no idea where to go" I just state and people start to laugh. The obvious tension in the air slowly was dissipating. Pam meanwhile I thought was coming with us but he was staying behind as he was going to be our lesion, one that we could trust at least.

The ship that we were boarding was not small or tiny as I had previously anticipated. An unusually shaped ship, captain met us at the entrance while I slowly let everyone on board slowly eyeing their equipment and state they have them. I noticed few out of place pieces of inventory meaning they had been placed in their containers in a wrong way. Minor things. Not bad I thought. The crew stood up while I was inside and waited for me to sit.

"At ease, few things I want to make clear, I will not take command of your ship and people away from you captain, the only thing I ask is to give me and my men some say." I expressed my feeling and offered my hand. "By the way my name is Kal Farah."

"Yes captain of Blackness, Mitch Connor. Pleasure to meet you sir." Mitch had wide smile and he was obviously relieved.

I slowly debriefed Captain Mitch and it was decided that we're going to get dumped by Blackness' pods which can carry up to 10 people at any one time. They were going to provide any assistance from orbit if there are any enemies that we cannot handle. 20 hours later we were orbiting that M class planet. We huddled into our pods. And the ship spat us out like it was not part of it directly onto the planet, before we entered our pods the order was to put our masks on. We spent 10 minutes shaking and some of the people almost puked including me but nobody really did. After a pretty soft landing, considering the ride we took, I slowly exited our pod and right besides us was our second one with Anna being the first one I noticed.

"Weapons ready. Secure 20 yard perimeter around the pods." I issued orders almost frantically we could not rest even a second since the area we were in was struck pretty suddenly. "Radio in we made it in one piece, tell them scan sweep 20 mile radius around us every 5 minutes, any changes are to report to me directly." First village is about 20 minutes of walking so we needed to go there first.

"Anna take point, I'll be last in until we arrive. Let's roll peeps" I move my hand overhead and we start the walk towards the village.

The area around us was lush green plain with trees here and there. The one obvious landmark was a mountain around 200 miles to our west. We were walking north to the first village. The walk to the village was uneventful apart from some strange animals coming near us and we having to pause to let them cross our path.

When we arrived the area around the village was starting to get black. Soot and ash were everywhere. The black color pretty impacting this glorious landscape. The black was not that weird as was the eerie silence that just was there. Up until few miles birds were chirping animals walking, running, crawling, flying but here, nothing? Static sound of nothingness. My helmet gave of strange readings which I confirmed with my team.

"What the fuck happened here?!" Paul asked. "It's different in many ways from the attack on our planet." He was right. While the lasers caused destruction, it was mostly in form of forest fires and EMP bursts of energy here and there. But this incinerated every living thing in this area. 2 miles across.

"Drones out. Weapons at ready. Anna and Paul go to our back I'll take our front. The rest keep your eyes open for any movement" they helped me launch 5 small drones from my suit that would circle around my vicinity which I can lower or increase. We started to see charred remains of kids, adults huddled together and hugging each other. We took soil samples and pictures of various places in the area. Nothing major happened so we headed to next place on our map.

The soil beneath my boot was soft unusually soggy considering the area around evaporated in a blaze just few days ago, the area around second site was quiet as the first one but what I found odd was the hair on my body was standing. I was unusually afraid for some reason like something was here. I bent down and took some dirt in my hands thru thick gloves. As I played with the dirt I view my own screen and with inside of my gloves I made the drones circle around our area, 2 of which I sent directly into the village and started to scan the buildings and scenes of carnage.

"Team lock and load. There is something strange around this area. Anna and I are on point the rest follow 10 yards behind. Defensive formation" I ordered while 2 drones that were inside quickly left the scene and made their where the rest of the drones were flying.

As we approached the village I noticed that it had a small trench going around its small wall. It was as high as my knees but the trench that was going around was deep and wide almost as me. I couldn't estimate the depth perfectly but I assumed it was as high as my hips. Some water hindered my process of correct estimation.

I knelt beside the wall and lifted my fist closed, then I opened and spread my fingers and palm, that was our sign to stay where they are and to spread out. I saw everything charred, burnt black, nothing could survive this attack. But still the hairs on my body would not go down for some reason. Something was definitely off here.

I slowly stood up and moved up front on the other side of the wall, Anna taking the position where I was. I started to hear a slight buzz, being behind an inclined house I started to see something what I perceived as village square. There was an object protruding from the ground. Metallic "U" shaped object, the buzzing sounds just made it more and more tense. The fear and anxiety I felt was almost palpable.

"I see something in the square, can you confirm Paul." I asked for conformation what I thought was seeing.

"Yes there is something protruding in the ground, U shaped object. I cannot determine its dimensions. Your orders?" Paul pretty quickly confirmed my doubts.

I was not about to leave here but I wanted to check what that was stuck in the ground.

"I want eyes on that thing at all times, I'll go confirm what it is, I want sniper rifle on me as well if anything comes near from one of those buildings I want you to inform me first."

I stood up and ran towards the object. I still had the drones but seeing is believing. I slid last 5 feet. It was not big. It was fairly large in size. I started to observe slight changes to sounds while I approached the object, I stop close to the object, holster my gun on my left shoulder, and start to examine the device.

"The device is buried deep in the ground, seems like it landed here god knows from where." I start voicing my examinations to other people on the line. The reason I do this is simple whenever we encounter a device we are to leave it for our explosives experts, but they are not here so I'm left with the task of closely describing what I see to my team.

"Have you seen anything like it?" I hear Anna asking. "Nothing on our DATA pads and history. Fairly new to me" she continued.

"Device is showing some weird characters on the side. Never seen anything like this." I slowly touch the screen in front of me, the device beeps and slowly starts to open. Black shell opens outwards, I jump and take my holstered gun pointing it at the device, "Crap, I opened it. Weapons ready Anna."

"Roger. You should really be more careful boss." She chastises me while laughing in my ear.

"Yeah I fucked up. I don't know why I touched the fucking thing." As it opens I position myself in front of the opening device, black insides with smoke billowing outwards assault me, I am under a mask but still its pretty frightening when you experience a gust of air coming toward you no matter where you are.

"Empty. Nothing is inside, fucking cunt. Made me piss myself." The silence is deafening, my team members are talking but I can barely hear them from the sound of my own heart.

"CAPTAIN, I need you here NOW" I've never seen Anna like this so I run at full speed to where she is kneeling. She points to a locations slightly in front of her to the side of me, I stop, kneel where she is, and point my gun where she is facing. I see something where the houses doors should be, an empty shell at first but soon I start to see slight movements here and there. Ruble is moving on its own and beneath it I see a pair of eyes staring at us.

I approach the ruble, the eyes contort I can see fear in them. I move my gun on my shoulder holster and show my empty hands. "Medic we need you NOW, everyone start sweeping the houses weapons at the ready, do not shoot unless I give the order too. Seems we have survivors."

We extract a being from the ruble, scared and malnourished, obvious signs of burns and various stages of radiations sickness. Slowly bit by bit the ruble is cleared. At the end at my feet lies 6 foot tall alien that I assume its native to this world. I open my water unit and give it to drink. "Easy, easy. Not all at once."

"Captain, you need to see this" the voice in my ear sounded scared I left with Anna while the alien was lying on the ground receiving much needed treatment.

I saw 5 soldiers around an area where the object was opened. All had weapons pointed at something in the ground, I came nearer and saw that there were more of those aliens.

"Easy guys. Put your weapons down" I started to walk with my arms held to my sides, palms exposed, I wanted to seem as harmless as possible. I saw many aliens carrying weapons, spears, gardening tools, nothing that could do any harm to us, the hole in the ground where my soldiers were pointing was pretty large and deep, I saw it was covered by some stone plank and something seemed to open it.

I started to climb down. Creatures seemed to have incredible fear they couldn't move, some flinched when I intentionally jumped of the last step. It made some of them drop their weapons in fright, so scared that they didn't even notice they no longer had any weapons.

Light in the hole was pretty poor but I could still see the area. Was not that big but still more than 20 creatures were huddled together in a group. Contours of their flesh around their skeleton tells me they haven't eaten for a long time. Mostly taller creatures that I assumed were elderly. I pointed my finger to the outside. I did not know what will happen if they remained here.

All of them stood up as one and started to run and climb the stairs going outside, I smiled, an evil thing to do when you see people in need doing what you tell them. But somehow I did not care, I felt strangely good. Last of the aliens went outside, and I was left alone in the room.

Dark room was smaller than I expected, housing all those people and some provisions was not easy, I noticed something in the corner of the room which was darker. I approached it and saw one of those aliens in horrible state, a mother, hugging her baby, trying to nurse. Mother was alive. Barely. She should have not been alive. I took her into my arms, the combined weight of both of them was nothing. I did not even feel they were there. I was afraid I would crush them with my hands.

This left me speechless. Emotion is something you gradually let go when you are in this line of work, but sometimes you see something that just makes you cry. I had tears streaming down my face for some reason, reminded me of my own late mother. She was a nurse that would help others in need just like this. This mother, this gentle being cared for her baby until she almost died.

"I'm coming up." My voice shake with emotions, I did not care though that I sounded pathetic for a leader that had his own men. I started to climb one step at the time towards the light hugging this creature as I went up. On top I saw my men caring for the aliens sitting them on makeshift beds, "Call Captain Connor, we need him and his men down here. Tell him where to land his ship."

Suddenly a hand came towards my helmet, skeleton looking, blue skin hand almost sticking to it, gently guiding my head towards the area it was pulling. Two giant purple eyes met mine, I was staring at this being. She was moving her mouth, I could not hear her for some reason, my hand almost immediately went toward my helmet and visor I removed both and I hoped now I could hear her what she wanted to tell me. But no longer having any strength in her to articulate she could only move her lips. Slowly, very slowly.

"I still can't understand you" I cried with tears streaming down my face, "SOMEONE please do you understand her" My men were looking my way but no one was moving for some reason. They stopped what they were doing to slowly move my way, removing their helmets one at a time. Anna was looking for some reason here with extremely worried and sad look on her face. I could hear in the distance a hum approaching. Aliens as well were looking sadly where I was kneeling.

But nobody was approaching to help them. Why? I hugged them tighter and looked at approaching Anna and Taryn, they had worried look on their faces. Anna kneeled in front of me putting her hand on my face.

"They need our help, why is everyone just standing" I pleaded while she gently caressed my cheek wiping my dripping tears.

"It's ok. We can't help them anymore" Anna just said something I needed few seconds to process.

She lowered her gaze on two precious gems I was holding tightly in my arms, I finally followed her gaze and saw two dead bodies in my arms. Both of them died. I swear I was not hallucinating I saw a hand grabbing my head and slight force behind it guiding it towards the place I finally saw two of the most dearest eyes. I can still see them vividly, but when I stare at the shell of the woman's body only white eyes are seen. There was no longer eyes the color of irises, purple infinity where I lost myself. Only two husks of flesh that smelt of death.

As gently as I could I lower their bodies down to the ground in front of me both mother and child on top of her chest lastly I move her arms around her precious child that she protected even in death. She has some weird necklace on her neck I gently take it and wrap it around her hand my tears hit her body, I'm afraid that this is somehow disgracing the deceased. I use my arm and wipe my tears away. I take my military blanket from my inventory from the backpack and cover them.

"Taryn please help the rest of the people we found. Paul, Tom and Jerry take turns and scout the area around the village. Cay did captain Connor confirmed when he's landing?" I issued orders while on the ground. Calm, cool, collected orders that just helped our current situation. "I want someone that can speak with them with us as soon as possible. Also food, show them what food we have and see if anything is poisonous for them." I throw my meal pack towards Taryn.

"Captain what happened?! You were acting really weird there." Taryn asked.

"I don't know, to be honest I saw them alive down there. I took them both out when she grabbed my helmet and said something."

"They were dead for few days captain, maybe after you took your mask off something in the air got to you?!" Anna asked worriedly

"That's what I find weird. I took my helmet just here when I called for help." I keep my eye on the corpse under the blanket,

"Captain, Blackness is coming. ETA 5 minutes."

"Prepare beacons, tell them to bring the ship just outside the village, the closer the better."

I stood up and started to walk toward the aliens that were on the ground. They looked at me with strange gazes. My recent emotional distress was pretty evident for everyone. I stood where there was a view on the mountain in the west, the sun was pretty high in the sky and enhanced the colors on this foreign world. Anna approached and stood near me as did Jerry and Paul. I guess they are worried about me.

"Did anyone figure out what they are saying?" I asked in low voice still trying to look at what this world had to offer. I was of course trying not to scream and cry at the injustice that some of the people are getting.

"Still looking for one, never mind that how are you doing, Boss that was pretty strange what happened with those bodies." Jerry was stoic and emotionless but still said things that made me slap him silly. But I knew his nature was cold hard frankness.

"I do not know man, must going crazy." I just made an unemotional gesture. "I saw her nursing in that hole." I shook my head while remembering, "We've been doing this for 3 years and I've never saw something like that. Sure the dead civilians back on that moon were pretty close but still those were older men. Not a mother and child." My eyes watered as I recounted my experience back in the hole.

Helmet on my hips I let wind wipe my tears away. I was not ashamed.