Iq'her Read online

  Almost.

  Iq’her

  I leaned back, attempting to stretch a terrible kink in my back, as the rest of Strike Team Two worked around me. We were in a warehouse on the east side of the city, several blocks away from our headquarters, attempting to organize and pack food crates that were intended for drop-offs in three of the nearby settlements.

  Miraculously, Rouhr’s accidental announcement yesterday hadn’t resulted in the terrible reactions that I had anticipated.

  Thus far, we had been lucky.

  Not only were most of the people we had encountered much less angry than I had anticipated, they had also been much more giving than I had given them credit for. Of course, with Tobias in regular contact with several of the food pantry and restaurant owners, there were some people that already had an idea of what was happening, even if it was only the bare bones of the situation.

  The restaurant owners and organizers of the food pantries were donating food, as were several of the farmers. They had made the selfless decision to donate what they could in order to help others. I was surprised by that fact.

  “You getting lazy on us, Iq’her?”

  I looked over at Rokul and his smug little smile. Just because the behemoth was several inches taller and many pounds heavier than me, he thought it would be okay to make fun of me because I wasn’t able to carry as much as he could.

  “Just stretching myself out, Rokul. Tella had too much fun with me last night,” I joked. The rest of the team all groaned and jeered at my little rib at Rokul’s expense.

  He took it in stride, however. “Really? Hmph.” He cracked his knuckles. “Tella would have broken you.” He then tilted his head to the side. “Maybe that’s why your back is messed up. You’re too weak to handle my woman.”

  We cracked jokes at one another’s expense for another ten minutes or so as we continued to load the crates when one of the Vengeance crew turned city guard came running in. “What is it, Hewl?” Karzin asked.

  From a technical point of view, Skotan biology was fascinating. Hewl was one of the few Skotan’s whose scales were a different color than his own skin. His skin was paper-white, but his scales, when brought out, were a deep purple in color. According to Skotan history, a very small population of Skotan had scales of a different color, due to a genetic anomaly.

  And as interesting as all of that was, it didn’t make a bit of difference right now.

  Hewl spent a moment catching his breath before answering. “Sir, one of the delivery trucks is being attacked by a pack of humans.”

  We didn’t wait. Karzin quickly ordered the other factory workers to finish packing the crates as we gathered our gear. We were out of the factory and on our way in less than a minute.

  Hewl led us to where he had seen the attack on the delivery truck. We were on the move, at a near sprint, for nearly two minutes before we arrived.

  What we found was a pack of fifteen or so men and a few women surrounding the truck. They were rocking it back and forth and I could see that they had already broken the truck…one of the axles was sitting on the ground at an awkward angle.

  A few of the men were trying to open the doors.

  Upon our approach, Karzin was yelling to gather their attention. “Stop! You people need to stop.”

  One of the men turned towards us and yelled an obscenity at us. He tapped a couple of his friends on their shoulders and pointed in our direction. The crowd began to turn towards us, while three of them continued to concentrate their efforts on opening the truck.

  They didn’t look destitute or starving.

  I could have understood that.

  They were just angry.

  “What are you people doing?” Karzin asked.

  “None of your fucking business, alien,” one of the men said, pronouncing the last word like it was a curse.

  Yup. Angry.

  “Actually, it is. You’re vandalizing and destroying city equipment, trying to steal food that doesn’t belong to you,” Karzin countered.

  “This food does belong to us!” the same human yelled back at us. His dark skin and dark hair seemed to almost absorb the light as his deep bass voice echoed off the buildings surrounding us. “You bastards are trying to steal our food and we want it back.”

  “We’re not stealing food,” I shot back. “We’re trying to make sure that other people, other humans,” trying to emphasize that last word, “are fed. The plant life of your world is dying off and you’re going to run out of food unless you start rationing. We’re trying to help.”

  I wanted to let them know that we were all in this together, that we were all going to suffer badly, not just them. We were all in the same boat.

  However, they didn’t buy my explanation. “Shut the fuck up, you goddamn cyborg. You’re lying to us. You just want to make sure that we’re forced to obey you by keeping us too weak to fight back. That’s why you’re taking our food.”

  “No, we’re not!” I fired back. “We don’t want to control anyone. Food is running out. The plants and crops that we all use for food are dying off. We need to come together, ration our food, and share with one another. That’s what we’re trying to do here.”

  “We’re telling you the truth,” Takar said, stepping forward with his hands up to show that he meant no harm. “Walk away from the truck and we’ll forget any of this even happened.”

  “Or what, orange-boy? You’ll try to arrest us?” a different man, small in stature and with a scarred face, spat. “You can’t take us all on.”

  Rokul snorted. Karzin shot him a sharp look as Sylor whispered for him to be quiet. Things were not going to go well, I could feel it.

  I quickly made sure that my safety was still on, then holstered my blaster. We certainly did not want to make this a deadly confrontation. I reached into my rear pack and pulled out my gloves.

  I had spent a bit of time with Sylor making these after we had first arrived. They included a small electrical charge that only activated when struck. After numerous tests, we had finally managed to properly insulate them so I wouldn’t get electrocuted when I used them.

  I had a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that this was about to become violent.

  “Please.” I held up my gloved hands. “All we’re trying to do is make sure that everyone, and I mean everyone, has food to eat. That’s all we’re trying to do.”

  “Then you guys stop eating our food and get the fuck off our planet,” the little one snapped at us.

  I dropped my head and I sighed. This wasn’t going to work. “Believe me, my friend, if we could return to our home, we would.”

  “I ain’t no friend of yours,” he growled. Then he turned to his crowd of friends and I read his lips. “Get them.”

  “Rekk,” Rokul echoed my inner thoughts with actual sound. All of us, including Hewl, quickly prepared to defend ourselves.

  We were outnumbered about three-to-one, and what they lacked in training, they made up for with numbers and hatred. Four of them came right for me.

  I stepped aside and pushed one by me, letting Hewl—who was behind me—have that one. I ducked under a wild swing, answering with a swing of my own to the abdomen. The glove sent a small charge into the man, causing him to scream and jump back, holding his torso.

  One of the women jumped in next, swinging a wooden club of some sort at me. I ducked and dodged once, twice, three times before I was able to get within reach of her. Not wanting to hit her, but fearing that I had no other choice, I blocked her next swing of the club and lightly brought my elbow into contact with her forehead.

  She stumbled back, looked at me oddly, then snarled as she jumped at me. She was wild in her attacks and I finally had enough, so I moved away from her. She wasn’t in control of her club the next time she swung at me, and the momentum carried her forward. She tripped and fell, the club striking her in the stomach.

  She dropped to the ground, moaning loudly and struggling to breathe. I checked to see if she requir
ed assistance, but was interrupted by a shout behind me.

  I quickly turned, blocking a blow from my latest attacker, and swung my leg around, sweeping his feet out from under him. Karzin quickly punched him in the head and pushed me to the side.

  A large body flew by me and collided with Karzin, taking both of them to the ground. However, the human’s momentum was too much and Karzin flipped him over, landed on top of him, and bounced the man’s skull off the pavement.

  I looked around and quickly jumped in to help Sylor, who was being attacked by two people at once. I rushed over, grabbed the smaller of the two by the shoulder and spun him around. My left hand connected with an electrical pop on his jaw. He spun around and fell, his already injured jaw striking the ground hard.

  Sylor kicked his in the groin, then snapped his knee up into the man’s head. That had apparently been enough for the humans, as they began running away. Most of them, anyway.

  Three were unconscious and two were already being bound by the brothers, Takar and Rokul.

  “That was fun,” Rokul smiled, a bit of blood dripping from his nose. He wiped it away and smiled again.

  I shook my head. Idiot. This had been a disaster.

  “Get these people secured,” Karzin ordered the brothers. “The rest of us, let’s get that truck taken care of.”

  I looked over at the truck. The front tires were flat, one of the rear axles was broken, and the windows were shattered.

  The back doors had been broken open and at least one crate of food had been dumped on the ground.

  This was bad.

  An absolute disaster.

  And it was clear, things were only going to get worse.

  Stasia

  “Table six sent their order back,” I sighed, placing the untouched dish back on the counter.

  The line cook eyed it for a couple of seconds, shook his head, and hissed a curse through his gritted teeth.

  “What now?” He stirred the contents of his frying pan in an irritated manner.

  “They say the vegetables aren’t fresh enough.” I shrugged. I wasn’t exactly surprised with the customer’s complaint—even with the new food rationing system barely in place, it was hard for any restaurant in the city to keep their pantry stocked.

  In fact, it was almost a miracle that Biher’s, the small restaurant I worked for as a waiter, still had its doors open. One of the few still-functioning restaurants in Nyheim, it owed that status to the stubbornness of the owner, Mr. Biher himself.

  “I’ll take care of it, Stasia,” Mr. Biher said, smiling kindly as he grabbed the plate from the counter. I leaned against the wall and watched the old man zigzag between the tables, making his way toward the one from which the complaint had come.

  Placing the dish back on the table, he clasped both hands in front of him apologetically and started saying something. From the distance, I couldn’t hear what it was, but in the end the customers were smiling and didn’t send the dish back.

  “I don’t know how you do it, Mr. Biher,” I told him the moment he returned.

  “Kindness and honesty,” he said as he laid a hand on my shoulder. “Those two go a long way.” He winked. “Of course, a discount also helps.”

  “Of course.” I smiled, even though I wasn’t sure how the hell he managed to keep his cool.

  Most restaurants were doomed to failure. That was just a fact of life in the restaurant business, even when everything was normal.

  To survive a war, a prison of vines, and then a mandatory food rationing...well, that was almost a miracle. And to do so with a smile was most definitely one.

  To top it all off, Mr. Biher had even donated some of the food he kept in storage. A group of aliens had showed up at the restaurant the day before, saying they were making the rounds and asking local businesses if they could donate some food to the general stockpiles, and Mr. Biher didn’t even hesitate. He went straight to the pantry and donated whatever he thought wouldn’t be needed immediately.

  It was the noble thing to do, yes, but I wasn’t sure if I would’ve done the same if I were in his shoes. I was just a simple waiter, though, and decisions like that were well above my pay grade.

  “New client,” Mr. Biher said, poking me with his elbow, and I immediately looked toward the door to see one of those green aliens, a Valorni, step inside the restaurant. A few of the other customers threw him annoyed glances, but nothing more than that. The building from which the aliens operated was just a few streets down from the restaurant, and some of them had become regulars.

  At least for some people, familiarity went a long way towards normalizing the Valorni and the others as just another face in the street.

  “Hello.” I put a smile on my face as I offered him a menu. “Can I get you a table, sir?”

  “I’m not here for lunch.” He ignored the menu in my hands. “I’m looking for someone. A woman named Stasia. Does she work here?”

  “That’d be me.” I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, a nervous feeling taking over me. Why did he know my name, and what the hell did he want with me? Could this be about —

  “Your brother said you’d be here when we were unable to reach you on your comm unit.”

  “Roddik?” I sighed. Of course, it had to be about Roddik. What else?

  I didn’t want to explain to the alien that I didn’t have a working comm unit because Roddik had borrowed mine and spilled beer on it.

  So far, I hadn’t been able to afford a replacement.

  It seemed the little asshole couldn’t stay out of trouble for a single day. “What did he do this time?”

  “If you could come with me, ma’am,” the alien replied, more politely than I expected. “I was just told to come here and inform you that your brother has been detained. If you want, you can come with me to post his bail.”

  “Alright,” I nodded, not sure if I should feel worried about Roddik or simply kick his ass when I saw him. I knew he was having a hard time, and that he was struggling with everything that had happened during the Xathi invasion, but I had no idea how to handle him. Even though I had gone through the same things he had, I couldn’t help but feel as if I was responsible for my brother’s failures.

  I returned to the kitchen. “Mr. Biher,” I bit my lip, worried. “I’m really sorry, but I have to leave.”

  “Is everything okay, Stasia?” He looked over my shoulder and toward the entrance, right where the green Valorni waited for me.

  “It’s about my brother,” I admitted. I didn’t really like to talk about Roddik’s problems, but I trusted Biher. With an understanding smile, he just waved me away and I handed him the menu I was holding. I felt guilty about the fact that he'd have to work harder with me being gone, but it couldn’t be helped.

  “I’m ready,” I told the Valorni. I tied my hair back with a small leather cord, momentarily wondering about why I even cared about my appearance. I hadn’t even bothered to take off my waiter’s smock.

  I followed after the alien for just a few minutes, and felt even more nervous than before as a couple of guards waved us inside his building.

  I had never been inside the place, and I didn’t like the fact that I was now coming here to bail out my brother. There were armed guards at every corner, a lot of them aliens, and everywhere I looked, people were moving through the building at a fast pace, talking to each other in clipped sentences, the air itself vibrating with barely repressed action.

  While I’d never been inside the governmental complex before the war, it wasn’t always this busy, was it?

  “The detention wing,” the Valorni said as we finally stepped out one of the elevators.

  I eyed the large room in front of me, which must have been the administrative part of the detention wing, and felt my heart drop as my gaze finally landed on the cells on the other end of the room. Even from where I was standing, I could already see Roddik.

  He sat slumped on the corner, head tucked between his knees, and he wasn’t moving. I
n the adjacent cells were five other men I recognized almost immediately: not hard to do, since they all were Roddik’s drinking buddies.

  “Your brother,” the Valorni merely waved toward the cell, and then left to start sorting a pile of tablets at a desk.

  Heading straight toward Roddik’s cell, I rapped my knuckles furiously against the plex.

  “Stasia?” he mumbled, slowly raising his head. He was slurring his speech, and his eyes were bloodshot. Not only that, but his hair was a mess and he looked as if he hadn’t slept at all. To say he looked like shit would be more than a fair assessment. “What are you doing here?”

  “I should be the one asking you that. They said you asked for me,” I threw right back at him, folding my arms over my chest. Tapping my foot against the floor nervously, I glared at him. “Well?”

  “Calm down, Stasia,” he smiled, pushing himself to his feet. “Everything’s fine now. Thish wash just a mishtake.”

  “This doesn’t look like a mistake,” I said. I didn’t even need to smell the alcohol on him. I could damn near see it seeping out of his pores as he walked towards me. I took a breath. Maybe I was being too hard on him, making assumptions that didn't fit the facts.

  “Are you drunk, Roddik?”

  “Me?” he said, raising both hands up in the air in an innocent gesture. “Never!” At that, his buddies burst out laughing, almost as if Roddik had said something incredibly witty and smart.

  Idiots, all of them.

  I wasn’t going to get the truth out of Roddik, apparently. Or out of any of his buddies, for that matter. Turning my back to Roddik, I gritted my teeth and scanned the office space adjacent to the holding cells.

  There were several aliens working quietly at their desks, but my eyes were immediately drawn to the group of five huddled together in one of the corners. They were wearing tactical gear and looked as if they had just gotten out of a fight. Muttering among themselves, I could guess they were filling out some paperwork while not looking happy at all.