First, I just want to say thank you to everyone who is following this. I'm honestly blown away by the support. Completing the original prompt was very much a spur of the moment thing, I never intended to keep it running. That said, I'm having fun writing it, and plan to continue it for a good while yet.
You can get pings when I post updates by joining the subreddit discord and typing ?rank The Knower of Truths. I have another serial already running here, The Void Beyond, as well as a bunch of already published books. You can get a free novella by joining my mailing list.
Michael sat behind the crates, hands clutching at his thick chestnut brown hair, curls twisting between his fingers. The loud cracking of weapons filled the air, sparks erupting as the shots landed, chunks of metal and grass flying into the air. The football pitch was slowly becoming a thick bog, mud churning up as the strange alien weapons obliterated the turf. Michael was rocking back and forth slightly, the crates wobbling as he did so.
“Come on then, make a fucking decision,” Aileena said, snapping off a shot with her pistol. She ducked, the air where she had been rippling with return fire. “Stay here and die or get in the ship.”
“I can’t, I can’t! I’m just some idiot from Tower Hamlets. You don’t want me. This must be wrong. It must be. If I can just explain to the troopers maybe they’ll let me go, yeah that sounds right.” Michael began to stand, only to be pulled back into the grass with a thump as Aileena grabbed his collar.
"What are you stupid? Those troopers are here for you. You really are stupid, aren't you? You're the Knower, supposedly. You're supposed to, well, know things. You climb out from these boxes and you're going to be like Bekanna there.” Aileena gestured the dead mercenary. Michael wasn’t sure if she was really so callous, or if it was a quirk of the translation device. “Come on make a choice, I’m not going to spend all day waiting for you to make your mind up.”
“I don’t know. I really don’t,” Michael said. He popped his head up above the crates, daring to peer at the troopers, knuckles white as his fingers gripped the edge of the cold metal box tightly. There was a burst of noise, and several large holes erupted into the metal around him. He collapsed back into cover, shaking. “Yeah, ok. The ship it is. Who the hell is going to save us? And where is that other guy the uh, bird-spider?” Aileena shook her head towards the lorry. Tucked behind the trailer was the other mercenary. Behind him was a cluster of rainbow feathers.
“You leave this to me. I am actually good at my job.”
“I never said you weren’t.”
“You implied it,” Aileena said, she glared at him with all six of her eyes.
“I honestly can’t remember when. Though truth be told you did kidnap me, not the best idea there. I’m telling you this is all a mistake. You're going to feel so red-faced when you realise that. Oh, that's not offensive to you, is it? Maybe being red-faced means something different to green people."
There was another crack of a weapon, much louder and closer this time. A hole smoked in the crate next to Michael. Hot air rippled from the barrel of Aileena’s pistol. “Do you never shut up! Rhythm help me I will shoot you myself and just walk away from this if you say another stupid word.” She placed one finger onto his lip. Michael stared down at the dark green nail at the end. “Ah, I can see you thinking. Not one word.” She waggled the pistol in her hand. “Ok, you see that ramp that leads up into the ship?”
“Yeah, the…right, no words,” Michael said, switching to an exaggerated nodding.
“Just run when I say go. Don’t look back, don’t stop to ‘take in the planet one last time’ or any of the hundred other stupid things that people do when they get onto a ship. And I’m assuming it is your first time on a ship. Just get in and hunker down somewhere.”
“What about the others?”
“What did I say about speaking! They’ll be fine, Brekt can handle himself fine. And the little guy is faster than you would think, even with all those legs.”
"I would have thought that more legs would make you faster," Michael said. Aileena curled her lip into a snarl. Michael pulled his fingers across his lips in a zipping motion, a gesture that only elicited a confused look from the green-skinned woman. "Shutting up," he said, repeating the motion.
“Ok, so,” Aileena said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small silver orb. It was the size of a ping pong ball, an object Michael had become intimately familiar with during university, as opposed to lectures, books or anything that would have helped him to get the art history degree he was supposedly studying for. Beer pong champion wasn’t as impressive on a resume. “Let’s go then.”
With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the gleaming ball over the crate. It hit the ground, digging into the turf as though it had an impossible weight. The was a low whine and a thin blue line stretched across its surface. With a bright flash the line burst outwards, forming a large shimmering translucent wall, the orb sat at the centre of its base. The rain of fire still cascaded from the troopers, green muzzle flashes strobing in the night, the floodlights reflecting off their crimson armour. The shots struck the wall, a ripple forming where each hit.
Michael did as he was told, breaking into a sprint, mud slapping at his trousers. They had started as the same brilliant white of his jacket suit, though like that they were now stained with dirt and grass stains. Mixed amongst those were faint dots of red. Splatter from the fallen alien. His shoes struck the pitch, slipping on the dew that had settled there, making it difficult to run. His shoes were white brogues, horrible uncomfortable things that he had ordered cheaply from eBay for a wildly ill-considered Halloween costume.
He thundered up the ramp, the metal wobbling worryingly under his weight. The door was open, a massive thick metal thing hanging open on enormous hinges. Metal wheels lay on both sides, the opening mechanism. Michael was oddly disappointed. If he was going to die on some random spaceship the least, he was owed was a swishing automatic doorway. He ran through the doorway, turning to press his back against the frame. Despite Aileena’s instructions, he peered out, watching the others.
The mercenary Aileena had called Brekt was falling back towards the ramp, screening the smaller bird-like alien with his body. He was firing wildly with the rifle in his hands. His blasts, like the trooper's, were striking the wall, but rather than bouncing off were passing through, emerging on the other side uninterrupted. A shot slammed into one of the soldiers, bright green sparks spraying off in a dramatic arc. The trooper collapsed to the ground for a moment, before standing back up, a wide black circle and noticeable dent in his chest plate. Michael was slightly shocked, years of science fiction movies had primed him to expect armour to be comically useless. The trooper was winded, taking cover behind one of the scattered crates, but the shiny red plating had done its job.
Aileena herself was running towards the ramp at full sprint. Her arm was twisted behind her, shots blind firing from her pistol randomly behind her. They slammed ineffectively into the grass, sending chunks of greenery flying into the air.
"What did I say about stopping to look! Get inside! You too Mellok," she said pointing at the skittering rainbow alien. "Brekt cover us." The taller alien replied something in his own tongue, his words rough like gravel. He took up a position at the bottom of the ramp, lowering to a crouch. He snapped off a few more blasts at the oncoming attackers. Another shot hit, this time lethally, shattering the reflective gold of a trooper's faceplate and exploding from the back of his helmet in a shower of gore. The trooper slumped onto the crate before him, head lolling to the side. Michael stared at its face. The flesh was mangled and torn, but still clearly human.
"Those are humans! What's going on here? Why are my own people shooting at me?" Michael was stamping like an angry toddler.
"I'm afraid that's a story for another time," replied the feathered alien Aileena had called Mellok. For the first time, Michael realised he wasn't wearing a translator. He was skittering through the doorway on his strange legs, Aileena following behind. Brekt was walking backwards up the ramp, still firing. He barked in his stony language. "Our friend says that the Council troopers are flanking around the shield. I'm afraid we will have to leave. Aileena I know it isn't in your contact, but can you fly the ship?"
"What do you mean fly the ship?! Is this not your ship?" Michael grabbed Aileena by the collar, releasing it in embarrassment as she stared at his hand.
"Nope. Not my ship, not my job. Deliver you to Mellok here, that was my contract. He was supposed to have his own crew ready." She turned her withering gaze to Mellok, his beaked head looking down at the floor.
“Ah, well, they didn’t arrive. It would seem prudent to assume that the Council have them.” Several of his feet scratched nervously. Brekt gave a guttural bark as he pulled the door shut and began turning the wheel to seal it. “He does have a good point Aileena.”
“Fine. Yes, I can fly this junker of a ship. Beats getting dragged off for re-education.” She walked across the small entry chamber towards a set of doors. They were lined in what Michael assumed were hazard stripes, though they were green and white rather than the colours he was more used to. Large glass windows ran the length of them. Aileena gripped the side of a small compartment on the wall next to it, a selection of buttons and levers behind it. Strange alien glyphs were scrawled across the glass. It didn’t move, so she raised her pistol, smashing the glass with the butt.
“I…I had the key,” Mellok said in faint protest.
“No time,” Aileena said gripping one of the now exposed leavers. She pulled it and the door slid open. At least I got my swishing door, Michael thought. “Everyone out of the airlock. Except you human, push that button before you step out, the big red one by the door.”
Michael did as he was told, he sensed he had pushed the alien's patience as far as he could. He turned and pressed the button, a massive oval thing that depressed with some resistance. There was a faint whine from behind him, and he spun to see two screens had sprung to life on the opposite wall. On them he could see the troopers advancing, having taken the long path around the energy wall. It took him a moment to realise the view was from the underneath of the ship.
Trooper Forest ran forward, rifle in hand towards the ship before them, boots stomping deep impressions into the pitch. A low whine had started, engines firing up. Readying the ship to take-off. In his helmet orders crackled through commanding him to fire on the vessel. He came to an abrupt stop, the servos in his armour doing most of the work. Forest crouched, shouldering his weapon and aimed at the ship. He pulled the trigger, the rifle releasing a loud crack and a bright green flash, but no recoil. That was still something he wasn’t used to. The invisible pulse, though his mind still thought of it as round, sailed through the air and plinked off the outer hull with a brief sparking. He fired again, the other troops joining him, a cascade of firepower striking off the ship in waves. Then something caught his eye, something dropping from the bottom of the hull, swivelling towards the firing line.
"Turrets!" Trooper Forest screamed, his helmet transmitting the words to those around him. It was too late. Incandescent beams of purple light lanced out from the turrets, sweeping across the line of troopers, slicing through armour and bone like butter. The grass burnt where the beams struck it, the smell of singed grass filling the air.
Aileena stepped back through the airlock door, tapping the shocked Michael on the shoulder. He stood staring at the screens, barely comprehending the devastation his single button press had wrought.
“There we go,” Aileena said, a sly smile on her lips. “Now you’re complicit. Haven’t got much choice but to come along now eh? At least you don't have to make that decision anymore." She lifted her hand from his shoulder. "Not that you had the choice, to begin with. Not really."
Submitted November 18, 2019 at 07:50PM by EvidarUK https://ift.tt/37baUuJ
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