Supplanted

Early the next morning (ship time) I decided to take my new information to the General. I would defer to his judgment as to what the best course of action would be in regards to our new allies as well as the surprising stance of Earth Central Command. I took an early shuttle over to the command carrier, alone, rather than risk an open comm. channel. The General’s carrier looked even more impressive in space covered with fighters than it did on the ground back at Kaletown.

After docking, I was swiftly ushered to the General’s quarters by a new aide who I don’t half remember. Eric was having breakfast with three other officers and . . . Celia. I tried to hide my astonishment, and my desire to vomit.

“James! I mean, Colonel Johansson; what a pleasant surprise. Do come in and join us. We’re having a social meal before the next wave of strategy meetings. You know Celia, and this is Captain Bailey of the USS Halftrack, General Grim of the ground forces nicknamed ‘The Goblins’, and Colonel Howard – one of my oldest friends from happier days.”

We all exchanged pleasantries. Then I immediately turned to business, “General, if I may have a word with you in private, I’ve come across some information that is of great importance to the success of our offensive.”

“Well,” Eric began, “if it’s vital to our success, you may present it to all those assembled here. We’re all in the same boat, you know.” The General’s cohorts grunted and nodded their agreements, their mouths all or partially filled with breakfast. Celia giggled hers.

“Begging the General’s pardon, and meaning no disrespect to those in attendance,” I stammered. “This info is not corroborated and might prove damaging to our mission should it be disseminated in total or in part without sufficient briefing to those in command as to how it should be made available; or, without serious research into its validity; it could be dangerous if released uncontrolled.” I thought to myself how skillfully I had used such big words to make my point. Surely the General would allow me a private meeting. What he said next was so surprising that I almost fainted.

“You mean about the Earth government creating our enemy and this war so that they could resettle our homes with people of ‘pure’ lineage rather than with mutts like us? Or perhaps you wish to warn me of the possible treachery of our new Earth force allies who are under secret orders from Earth Central Command to destroy us? Nice of you to bring it to the table, Jimmy boy; but, as you are now aware, I am well briefed as to the state of our mission and the intangibles that have arisen to threaten it.”

I think I managed a sheepish, “But how?” It had slipped my mind that Captain Stovall was also present at that secret meeting, but I was currently concerned with my own intentions and failures.

“Connections, my man,” Eric beamed. “You see, I have many more friends other than yourself.” (I knew that.) “For instance, Celia here has been near Earth; Saturn, if I’m not mistaken. Oh, they wouldn’t let her set foot on the ‘pure’ home soil; she’s been bred ‘outside’ of the acceptable pedigree range. But, you see, her husband’s family are Earth natives. They have petitioned the Earth government to allow the sole surviving member of their clan; namely, Jeremy, to be allowed to repatriate to Earth so that he may lead the next generation of Scotts and keep the family name alive. I’ll let her tell you the travesty of that little escapade later.

“Colonel Howard here is also an Earth native now ostracized to the outer worlds. He and I met . . . on assignment, um, you know. The one I told you about; the one before I married?” I took no pleasure in his sudden squirming. I nodded my remembrance and let him off the hook; perhaps too easily. “Well, he’s permanently stationed on one of the Earth ships that are accompanying us. He has my full trust as well as his captain and their crews and fighter units. He has also given me his vouchsafes for several other ships as well as for your Captain Standish. Yes, my friend, I know all about your little secret meeting.”

I was beginning to wonder if my old friend was more talented as a spy than as a commander, but he continued. “General Grim has several inside connections with Earth gov., mostly to those members of it that oppose the current regime and their ideas of eradicating us so called ‘unworthy’ or ‘impure’ citizens with this ridiculous war they’ve concocted; even though these opposition members are sadly few in number. From him I have a list of trustworthy Earth politicians, if you can believe such people exist,” he chuckled, “that we may present our findings to in the event that we may have to engage in some form of legal conflict with the home sector; or submit an outright accusation and a call for impeachments and other such reorganizations, or . . . whatever else may be done politically. He also knows quite a bit about the enemy technology and ways to defeat it.

“And finally, Captain Bailey is an ex-patriot from Earth gov. itself. He tried to fight the system from within and was expelled and deported for his efforts. He cannot even set foot on an Alpha sector planet, moon or station because of his ostracizing. So, what have you to add to our intelligence coffers, hmm?” I had to admit that I didn’t have anything new to tell him.

“Then it will probably be news to you that we know the exact planetary location of our enemy’s home base as provided by our new allies?” I had to admit that it did. I also had to admit that our leader was much better informed and prepared than I had given him credit. I excused myself and slinked away with as much dignity as I could muster.

I almost made it outside. “Don’t go away upset, my friend.” The General said to me as I tried to escape this embarrassing situation. “You have more than proven your loyalty by bringing what you’ve found out to me. I should promote you for that alone.” I cringed. “But, unfortunately, we have the business at hand to take care of first. Get back to your unit, Colonel. We’ll be deploying for attack within the day. Promotions will have to wait until afterwards; for the survivors, as usual.” I couldn’t tell if that last bit was a joke or not, no one in the room made any sign of amusement; not even Celia.

I almost made it out, before, “And, Colonel, I fully expect you to survive.”

“Yes sir. Thank you, sir.” I muttered over my shoulder as I hastily retreated. I thought I caught a last “can’t help it that he’s so out of the loop; living where he’s been all these years,” as the door closed, but I chose to ignore it.

The shuttle back to the Faust was a somber ten minute ride. Even 2lt Madrid had nothing to say to me that would settle my stomach. (She had taken a later shuttle over to the command carrier after discovering where I had disappeared to.) I even refused her sexual advances; I was that embarrassed.

Once aboard the Faust, my melancholy was broken by the call to battle stations. The fleet was forming up for the assault. We had our enemy’s coordinates, but I was to find out that we were not near enough to our objective at the current time. Something else had caused the alarm.

A snag had entered into our plans. We had come upon an enemy carrier that was headed back to its home base; obviously damaged, but capable of endangering our mission. We couldn’t allow it to alert the enemy to our presence, so an all out attack was launched to destroy it before it could give away our position.

Since I was no longer a fighter pilot, I had to watch helplessly as my fellow shipmates launched into battle. All I could do was watch the progress of the conflict from my ready room on the colorful tactical screens. I had never felt so useless in so many ways in so short a time. I longed to just go back to my farm and retire, but that would have to wait.

Entry 11a

A new hope

Our fighters made short work of the enemy carrier. Apparently, it was limping along in near to exploding condition as it was. A few quick salvoes and the enemy ship exploded silently in space. Flares of flame illuminated and incinerated its remaining atmosphere momentarily, and then vanished into the blackness of space and debris. I could hear a cheer rise up from the lower decks. My Rough Riders unit must have been watching on their tactical monitors as well.

I can’t tell you how I felt at this moment. The gladness of this small victory was lost to me in the concern for the uncertain endeavor so near at hand. I had a lot more on my mind than the elimination of a single carrier could impress. But what was to follow did alter the course of my thinking.

A message came through over my ready room comm. “Colonel Johansson, sir?” I answered it in a low voice. “We’ve got a prisoner, sir. What should we do with him, uh, it?”

Now, in every other war you may have read about, prisoners are a common occurrence; but in our conflict, mostly fought in space where survivors are repeatedly zero in number, and without ground assaults that would possibly leave living or wounded soldiers behind, enemy prisoners have been non-existent. My first question was going to be if we had captured an actual living enemy; but I chose not to ask that since it probably was a stupid question anyway. I decided to answer the question that had been asked of me.

“Bring him, it, or whatever to my ready room,” I ordered confidently. “And see to it that the guard along the course taken to here is tripled. I won’t have our ‘guest’ suffering any ‘accidents’ while in our care. Understood?”

“Sir, yes sir!” came the reply. I heard more than a little excitement in the soldier’s voice. I wondered what the cause of it was; the capture of an enemy, the post-action euphoria, the lingering thrill of victory, or perhaps even the opportunity to speak over the PA system. I would have to wonder about that much longer; I had other duties to perform.

Right now I had to figure out what I was going to do with our prisoner and how to conduct my first interrogation. I wondered how we would communicate; and, to that end, who I could contact that would be able to translate should I need an interpreter, even if there was such a person. I didn’t have connections after all.

As I may have said before without too much certainty, no human from the outer colonies has ever met an enemy soldier face to face; this war had no such engagements that would make that possible. At least no one from our side (excluding our new Alpha sector allies, whom I cannot speak for) had met an enemy that I knew of anyway; and it was fairly certain that none of our people had ever spoken to an enemy before; even if they had been created by Earth scientists. At least, that was the opinion that I had at this new happening.

Also, there was the question as to what I would do after my interrogation. Who should I turn a prisoner over to? Where would we keep a prisoner? What would we talk about? Did he, or it know any more about us than we knew about him? How was I going to speak to this . . . thing? What is the proper protocol when interrogating an alien enemy for the first time?

I was to be greatly out matched.

Entry 11b

Enemy mine

The creature was brought to my ready room. Only 2lt Madrid and I were present when the two men guarding it left it in front of us and took up their posts inside the door. Captain Stovall bore witness by video monitor. I was ill prepared to meet such an amazing thing. I will attempt to describe it as best as my limited powers of description allow me.

I had heard that our enemy was a combination of plant and animal. I knew very little about Earth flora and fauna, but the thing that was brought before me resembled several of what I might call “popular” Earth native creatures.

The alien stood on eight legs like a spider; not hairy legs but sort of leafy/hairy. From the floor to its . . . head (?), it was about four feet tall. Its middle section was concealed by a jellyfish like body shaped like an umbrella with what may have been poison tentacles that hung all around and under it; although I’m not quite sure. All over its body it was colored in shades of green as if it was a plant, but its head (if I can call it a head) was the most plant like feature it had besides its overall color.

It had three Venus Flytraps for mouths. Its eyes were on two stalks that were shorter than its . . . neck (?), like a crab’s eye stalks. I couldn’t see any ears or anything like a nose, but I just figured those organs weren’t necessary to a plant creature that spent most of its time in space. As I stood in amazement of this creature, it did something that I hadn’t expected, and I hadn’t expected much. It spoke to me.

It was a whispery voice that seemed to be generated by vibrating the tendrils of the flytrap mouths. I cannot describe it any better. The fact that it spoke my language left me to ignore everything else about the creature. We now had to have our interrogation.

“You are in charge?” the enemy asked. It took me a minute to compose myself. I was standing (awkwardly) while 2lt. Madrid sat gaping at the nearest table. I didn’t notice throughout this encounter that she had failed to take very many notes at all.

“Uh, yes,” I said at last. “I am Colonel James Johansson of the Wilson’s World Rough Riders. And, uh, to whom am I speaking?”

“I am.” It told me. It didn’t say anything else.

“You are what?” I asked.

“I have said the truth.” There was another pregnant pause.

“I don’t understand,” I admitted.

“Then your question is improper. Try another.”

“Okay,” I tried to remember my training. We were never taught interrogation procedures, only the cliché basics for when we might be captured ourselves. I decided to use that as the basis for my attempt. “What is your name, rank and, um, serial number?” I was grasping at straws here.

“I am not a name. I am not a rank. I know not of serial number.”

“What is your unit?”

“I am.”

“I know that. What is your unit? What is your unit’s strength? Where are they located?”

“I am not a unit. I know not of strength. I am here.”

I didn’t know whether to be angry or to continue to be confused. I decided to take another direction with my questioning.

“Why do you hate us?”

“What is hate?”

“Why do you fight us? Why are we at war? What is the purpose of our killing each other?” I noticed that I had been pacing the floor. I tried to stop so that I would look more official, or intimidating, or just less foolish.

“It is what we do.”

“Why?”

“It is why we are.”

“Why are you this way?”

“Your question is improper. I am as I have been made. I am that I am.”

“Why were you made? Who made you?” I thought I already knew the answers to those two questions. I was wrong again.

“We were made to make things new by the ones who are to come after and replant. We were made to clear away the old brown and decaying so that new young plantings may cultivate in their place. We are to prepare the grounds for the coming of the new. The grounds are to lay fallow until the coming of the new plantings.”

I had to stop. I was beginning to understand the awful truth. This thing, our enemy, was created, or more like hired to do a job, for one single purpose: landscaping. The humans of the outer colonies were nothing more to this thing than old growth that needed to be pruned away; a field that needed to be plowed under for a new crop. My enemy saw nothing wrong with its actions. My enemy saw nothing useful in me or in my people. My enemy had no mercy because my enemy was merely a worker on a job doing what it had been created to do to entities that it didn’t understand and didn’t need to understand, just destroy so that they could be replaced.

“We have been reduced to less than obsolete citizens,” I said to no one in particular. “We are merely old growth that needs to be razed to the ground; the chaff to be separated from the grain. Our enemy has been programmed to believe that he is doing good for its creators. How are we to fight that? How can we survive that? How can we defeat that?” The silence around me attested to the absence of answers. The creature continued talking.

“Why do you resist us?”

I think I managed another cohesive, “Huh?”

“Renewal is a wonderful thing. It is necessary to the continuation of life. That which is young and fertile needs room to grow and to be nurtured. It needs to replace all that has outlived its time of fruitfulness. Why do you resist that which must be?”

I found myself defending human life from a very different angle. “Humans don’t live like that. We . . . our existence is . . .” I had to think like a plant to get through to this thing. “We are like trees; a forest. We live long, fruitful and healthy lives. Our, um, saplings are grown near us. They learn from us how to live. We are necessary to them. We eventually die naturally, but we do not outlive our fruitfulness. We don’t need you to clear us away.”

“I am . . . unable to see truth in your words. Please speak correctly.” I wondered if that meant that I was getting through to this thing. I tried another tack.

“I am human. I am animal, not plant. I grow for many years, remaining useful, fertile, mobile, until my natural death. I am . . .” I took a long pause to think; my enemy thought that I was finished speaking.

“You are?” It seemed perplexed; I had said something that it could understand. “We were led to understand that you were no longer. We were to clear away . . .” It suddenly stopped. The room remained silent for some time.

“I must go. I must tell the others. We must end . . .”

This time we were interrupted by an all too familiar clamor. The comm. blasted the voice of our fearless leader, and he didn’t sound pleased.

“Colonel Johansson!” General Josten barked. “You are to turn your prisoner over to my authority at the command carrier at once! Any and all intelligence regarding this encounter is to be handed over with him, it. You have sixty seconds to comply.”

I knew better than to disobey a direct order, especially one that was delivered in anger. “Yes sir. At once, sir,” I acquiesced.

So ended my first, last and only personal encounter with our enemy. We never heard anything more about where it went, what it said, what it was asked, or whatever else may have happened to it. It was as if it had never been captured. No one I know speaks about it to this day.

I can tell you its final words to me before the two guards hastened it away, “I am. You are, therefore, we are. I must return. We must be known.” I’ll be damned if I have any idea what the creature meant, and furthermore, I was never told how we managed to capture the thing in the first place. For those who are reading this essay, I apologize for that omission, but, perhaps a record was kept somewhere not to my knowledge.