Battleground
On a war-torn planet thermal imaging is the best survival tool she has. If it gives off heat, it might be human. If it doesn't... run.
Aletha shielded her eyes as the sky exploded. A thunderstorm of sparkling jewels broke, as the two ships collided, the finale of their death waltz that would consume them both. She slung her blaster over her shoulder, the strap notched into the calloused groove just below her neck. Her thighs burned as she hustled up the hill. By dusk, the enemy’s sweepers would descend upon the crash site, leaving nothing behind but ash. She had to beat them.
She’d scavenged every piece of her armaments from cooling battlegrounds or picked from fallen compatriots before they were taken up. Boots pulled off the feet of her next-door neighbor’s youngest son whom she used to babysit. They were just her size. Her too-tight helmet, however, was her brother’s, and it squeezed her temples. But better a helmet made for a child than no protection at all. Her battered breastplate had come from her father. It banged against her collarbone and left bruises, but she would never part with it. It still smelled of him, pungent cigar and spicy juniper. He would mash the berries to use as aftershave. It would take more than an alien invasion to prevent her father from being squared away.
In the olden days, those sweet pink years before The War, when her father had refused to let her enlist, a battle would come, and her brothers would fight it. Returning home with patriotic pride and renewed vitality. Tradition, terrestrial decorum, and centuries of rules had colored his perceptions. How could he know then that when this war landed–the terrible-faced enemy descending from the skies–that none of those things would matter.
Young and old, the weak and the poor, the rich and the strong, they would all of them fight, or they would die. So, they fought. Most died anyway. Cut down with honor and defiance, but cut down all the same.
Aletha’s proximity meter chirped, rousing her from these ghosts of the past. The stern face of her father protested momentarily, eventually fading before the imminent needs of survival. He would have time to haunt her later, when she laid her head to rest.
After months of tactical experience, her taut muscles swung into action on a hair trigger. She’d stopped moving and crouched in a defensive position, blaster at the ready, before she’d even fully registered the muted warbling from her wrist. She grit her teeth and stilled her breathing. She would not be cut down, her body taken up by their enemy with the face they dared not look upon. She would die by her own hand before she let that happen.
The children called them Kooshma after the nightmare demon of stories, whose gaze would paralyze you before it ate you. Now there were no children left. Gone were the days when the Kooshma was play-pretend, and only adults went to war.
Aletha had never once been tempted to look upon the face of this enemy. Fear outweighed her curiosity, which had been considerable. In another life, she was a walking question mark. She sampled every flavor before making her decisions. She insisted on awkward sticky fumblings with potential suitors before dismissing them as not to her liking. Never satisfied with other’s rote explanations and vague reasonings, she kept her own council and made her own decisions based on experience, never word.
Necessity quenched her raging curiosity…mostly. Battle-hardened and weary from the constant surges of fear and ferocity, she had been filed down smooth and sharp, an economy of spirit. With a trembling forefinger, she lowered the protective visor over her eyes. It took many thousands of casualties before they realized that to even look upon the visage of this enemy meant madness and death.
The modified visor changed vision from light and color of natural sight to waves of energy emitted by the world around. Compatriots glowed a deep red with yellow around the edges on the now black and grey landscape, while the enemy lit up in her visor as a brilliant blue, for they emitted no heat but a deep unsettling cold. Frost washed over battlefields as they brought with them the very ices of hell with each step.
Acrid smoke burned her lungs and stung her already parched throat. She ran her tongue out over her cracked lips, praying for a full canteen out there somewhere. She swept the landscape, trying to distinguish the waning heat of dying bodies from the flickering reds of spot fires, keeping an eye out for warning blues. If there was only one Kooshma sweeper, she would risk the scavenge. Her stomach growled its consent. More than one, however, and she would run. No need for curiosity here. Bitter experience taught her this.
One of the enemy could be outmaneuvered. They were clumsy and slow, but more than one, and the real threat emerged. They worked together somehow. Moving as a single consciousness. As if all the enemy pieces on the d’doly board were active all at once. The more of them there were, the more angles they could maneuver, and their numbers seemed to increase daily.
She felt like a bag of rocks, her muscles tight and hard from the constant running. Impossible to believe she’d ever been soft, ever been relaxed. She couldn’t remember the last time she was full. Loneliness and hunger, twin rats constantly gnawing, left her ragged and hollow.
Aletha methodically scanned the crash site. No blue spots yet, but plenty of waning reds bloomed in her visor. The wilted flowers of the cooling dead, and soon-to-be dead, dotted the field. She headed to the brightest of these. It was possible-unlikely, but possible-she could save a compatriot’s life. Or at least put them out of their misery.
She reached the body, the outline was unmistakable now. It glowed a brighter red than they should’ve if they were on the threshold of death. Aletha’s heart skipped with hope. Perhaps she could save someone today. She raised her visor to better inspect the damage. Bile flooded her nose and mouth, and she gagged, grateful she hadn’t eaten in a couple of days. The sweet cinnamony stench of charred flesh assaulted her. Her eyes watered from both the smoke and emotion. There was nothing to be done here.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention as a sudden chill oozed up her spine. The heat from the burning body in front of her accentuated the deep cold at her back. Without thinking, Aletha whirled around, blaster at the ready, collapsing her entire world with this one careless action. She stared at the Kooshma, unable to move, slowly processing what she was seeing. It’s mottled greyish green skin. Its huge, lumpy head, the cold that radiated off of it in frosty waves, were all horrible to behold, yes.
But nothing could have prepared her for the creature’s eyes. Staring down at her, with what could only be recognition, were the unmistakable eyes of her father. Her father, who had fallen in battle and been taken up, who sacrificed himself to save the life of his children, whose laugh was sweet and clear as an autumn day, was staring down at her from the face of a monster. Tears flowed from his eyes as he raised his weapon. The Kooshma weren’t unfeeling killing machines. They were much more monstrous. Their loved ones, fallen and taken up. Allowed to see and recognize the damage they wrought, but unable to stop it.
Her latent curiosity sated, all questions answered. She now understood why they were cold, how their numbers increased so rapidly, and why to look upon them brought madness.
Aletha closed her eyes, welcoming a fate worse than death.
This was so good! I loved Aletha's character, and the ending gave me the most awful chills!