Work Text:
Then
Loyal Hillians,The Alpha Section thanks you for your cooperation in taking a stand against the plague of the universe, the Domz. System by system, planet by planet, the Domz have captured and enslaved hundreds - thousands of technologically bereft worlds. The time has come for it to stop. With your help, we can focus on driving them from our worlds...
“Turn that excrement off.”
I barely saw the swish of a purple tail flick against the screen. The central-bottom monitor flicked back to the logo for ‘Universal Productions’, and a metallic voice bleeped out : Thank you for participating in this free broadcast, courtesy of the Alpha Free Speech Movement. ‘AFSM, bringing you the latest developments quicker than the blink of an eye!”
Two big yellow eyes underneath a pair of inquisitive ears peered over the balcony of my slightly raised control seat, and instantly, I was down to pick up the fuzzy brat.
As I tossed her into the air, Mei purred and giggled in equal proportions. Her father, Jonas, leaned against the doorway, watching. “It’s happening again.” He said, his dark eyes downcast. “The same way as all the others. It’s a bigger planet this time.”
I took Mei with me back to the control seat, jammed a few buttons on the console until the OS popped to life. The virtual face of the OS, customised to be a young female, human, with darkish skin, popped up on the desk, and looked at me inquisitively,
“Primo...” I began, stroking the back of Mei’s neck. “Can you track the development of the AFSM Comms array to it’s next logical point? And give me the planets that are in the way. Where are they broadcasting to?”
“Pas de Problemme.” The 9 view screens worked together to show the picture of the star systems, with the Comms array a blue line between them, like a spider web, absorbing all the systems and connecting them in their slavery to the Alpha sections, the only source of protection the universe had against the Domz. Just thinking about them made me set my jaw, a reflex developed on the homeworld as everything fell apart around me, the Alpha sections sitting pretty up in space, apologising that we weren’t devoted enough to stop it.
The picture paused a moment while Primo’s processor kicked in, then zoomed quickly into a star system not far from our present location, main inhabited planet : Hillys.
“Hillys has a population of about 50,000. Main stable population, human. It has a history being a trading planet, so most of de population is in transit, quickly going off la monde et on again. Hillys trades with … “ The screen blinked again and red lines began to appear all over the systems, all connecting back to Hillys.
I whistled. “You wouldn’t think such a small thing would be so important...”
“Within 5 years, if the AFSM Comms controlled all input and output of zis system, 87.8% of ze universe would be affected...and it would be worth an estimated … 30.2 million credits.” The soft female voice crooned. “Zese are ze planets...”
“That’s fine Primo, I was just looking.”
I sighed, and pointed at the screen for Mei. She extended one claw, and clicked the OS back into sleep-mode. Primo, still talking, slowed as the pattern broke down, and finally was silent.
“I always feel bad telling that thing to shut up. I should make it a man, so it can take it.” Mei grinned. “Good girl. You tell her.”
“Mei, to your quarters please.” Jonas said, a no-nonsense tone in his voice.
“Bye!” Mei said, planting a kiss on my snout. She skittered past her father, into the back of the ship, and he closed the door behind her. I couldn’t help but grin as she disappeared from view.
“You should find a person to have one of your own with.” Jonas commented as he leaned on the bars next to me. “You love Mei so much, and she listens to you. You’d be a good father.”
“Who has time, what with the flea-bitten Domz, and them cock-eyed Alpha Section. You know I love that kid, but you’re a brave soul bringing her into the world at a time like this.” I replied.
“What are we going to do about it, Pey’j? I mean, running covert media channels is all very well, and some left-wingers actually listen to the radio and read their messages, but we need a better plan. We need something that’s actually going to have an effect. We’ve tried this on planet after planet, and the result’s always the same - the same as on our homeworld.”
“I know, but the truth is, we need more people, more ships, money, support - we need proof, Jonas, and that doesn’t just pop outta thin air. We need a planet with ballsy enough folk to actually see what’s going on and do something about it before it’s too late.”
I looked at the screen and set the view manually, unwilling to go through Primo again, and looked upon the blue world that lay in line with the Domz plans. As the information slowly appeared on the screen, I scanned faces, names, schematics, government patterns, wars...everything that had shaped the world. These weren’t just civillians, I started to realise. They were survivors. They had survived violent earthquakes, Domz assaults, uprisings in their own world...they had fought for their status as a galaxy class trading world, and through that goal, united their world. United, they had had the credits to rebuild their defences over the past 50 years to specifically resist the Domz and devote their scientific power to coming up with weapons that would make them think twice about approaching.
But, they weren’t the only ones that had gone to extreme lengths to unite against the Domz, and even worlds that had had a common government for centuries had fallen.
As I focused on the geography of the planet, I started with surprise. “Jonas, it ain’t happened yet!”
“What hasn’t?” He asked, but I was too busy checking my machines. It really hadn’t happened yet...the geothermic reaction that split the planet into small and organised chunks...The continents were still on the route that they had been in since the planet had developed life! We might be able to stop it! We might be able to see what it was that made all of the affected planets change to a state which made them so easy to take over!
Burning with hope and ideas, I turned the Beluga towards the planet, jolting Jonas out of his position on the rail. “Quick...we need to get in touch with the government, tell them what’s on it’s way!”
He didn’t say anything, but nodded and went to his seat near the viewscreen.
This planet had so many possibilities, good places for a base. I started looking for a place to land that wouldn’t attract so much atten...
“Unidentified vessel, please state your business.”
It was the voice of a being, not an Alpha section recording, piggybacking off the AFSM Comms link. Passing a look at Jonas, I flipped on our own Comms, making sure there was enough crack to disrupt my voice pattern. “We just stopped to pick up the broadcast. We’ve been trying to keep ahead of the Domz after out planet was destroyed. I don’t suppose we could park up for a bit, get some fresh air?”
There was a pause. “A scan of your vessel shows no Domz technology on board. Hillys welcomes all visitors. I’m transferring a digital copy of our laws and customs regulations. Please read them, then proceed to these coordinates once you reach the planet.”
“Thank ya kindly. Nice to see some neighbourly folk out this side of the galaxy.”
**
MDISK 480 : For Jade
Dear Jade,
If you’re listening to this, it means that I’ve either seen fit to tell you about your origins, or I’m somehow incapacitated, and you’ve found this. Hopefully you’re old enough and mature enough to be able to take the information contained on this MDISK. If not, well, I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to tell you this myself, Darlin’. Remember, I’ll always love you.
****
((The following portion sounds older, more corrupted and is labelled under “Log of Landing”))
Our landing on Hillys was uneventful, for the Beluga. She behaved well enough to slot us into one of the docking ports on the planet, but shortly after, one of the stabilizers shorted out. We met a few of the folks that were regular traders on the planet, and they recommended a troop of Rhinos that dealt in spare parts.
In our dealings with them, we discovered that they were involved in the research of the Domz power and personality source, the central pearl. Selflessly, they were collecting and transferring these pearls to the secret research centre for Domz control, kept away from all political agendas at all costs. In return, the science centre was supplying the credits to keep their business running. They had a network established under the nose of the AFSM, something to be admired, and it was them that set up Hillys’s communication protocols, allowing communication with ships anywhere along the AFSM Comms array. I set them to work acquiring me a stablizer after they told me where I could find a Domz pearl that they had picked up on radar. We took the hovercraft, and went to investigate right away.
It was the biggest Domz artifact I had ever seen - a statue almost. As tall as the cave that it was in, with a face carved out of...Ivory? Some kind of bone? It was glowing with green light, and God help me, I was overtaken by it. But as I stared at it, transfixed and unable to fire, it grew brighter, and brighter. It never moved, never made a sound, except for a couple of muffled groans. The light shifted focus, down to our level, where a crystal was embedded in a stone podium, like it’d been there for centuries.
Slowly, I drew closer, compelled. My feet weren’t my own. Soon, I was able to make out the figure inside...a woman, heavily pregnant, but just so still. Her face was completely serene, but held in that Domz light, staring upward. The light obscured her features until it started to tint red. Redder and redder, I could see the woman quiver as the thing started to burn her. It was at that moment that I recognised her. She was from our homeworld! Jonas attacked a split second before I did, and together, we blasted the crud out of that crystal. It was me that first hit the podium, and the crystal fell out of alignment with the statue behind it and collapsed on the ground, Jessica’s pain clearly visible on her face.
The light seemed to stop, and suddenly, the earth beneath us began to quiver. The statue itself flared, muttered a few syllables, then began to fade, leaving a huge hole in the rear wall of the cavern system. Jonas and I rushed to the capsule, which now looked much more like a capsule than a gem without the light behind it, and futzed with every piece of circuitry we could find. We managed to open the thing, but it was clear even before we did that the woman inside was dead. The light remained on her belly, and slowly, the machine inside the capsule brought a baby girl forth from the body. Her skin was glowing green, her eyes burned with white, and she was crying to deadly hell. Just afterward, all power dropped from the gauges on the capsule, and the lights went dim.
She looked exactly like Jessica, were it not for that light. It brought back so many memories. We were young together, before IRIS, before the Domz started taking whole planets. The second my trotter touched her face, I was hooked. I knew she was probably a Domz thing, subconsciously, but that didn’t seem to make no difference. Jonas wondered if I had somehow taken in some of that light myself, and we argued about it for quite a long while in the cave. The baby spontaneously stopped crying, interrupting us, and we turned to see the light drain...into her body. It shocked the both of us into silence.
The earth rumbled, and without speaking, I removed the baby from what remained of her mother, and the dead capsule, glanced at Jonas, and we both evicted the premises, afraid of a cave-in.
We took her to the Rhinos first, at their planetary lab a bit away from the port...and they did a full scan of her body. She seemed...human. Very human in fact. Studying her genes revealed no distortions, perfect alignment. Now I don’t know much about that kinda stuff, but it unnerved me that the Domz knew how to create a perfect human child, and I asked about it. The Rhinos came to the conclusion that she was a clone of the woman that had borne her, it was too stable to be some kind of human-Domz hybrid. But, most importantly, they didn’t see any trace of the light, whatever it was.
Suddenly, there was a shake. Rhinos began to run for their instruments. I tried to get a handle of what was going on... ((There are sounds of glass breaking, people ordering instructions, and Pey’j’s voice fades into the background))
****
((the following is the same age-stamp as the first part of the message, the sound quality is newer and cleaner))
It turned out that the rumbling we felt was the earthquake we had come to the planet to warn the populous about. A large amount of the population that was planet-side was killed. The volcano erupted, creating a new landmass around it. Many of the landmasses already in place were covered by water, including the port, and all of the ships that were docked there were completely destroyed, leaving people with no way to get out.
The lighthouse, a marker that had before been used to indicate where the spaceport was, was still standing, being on a mountain above the water line. We used that as a gathering place for all of the survivors. The Beluga was saved because it was with the Rhinos, who proved themselves yet again more resourceful than anyone thought. Their base was equipped with rockets, and they were able to manipulate the base to a different part of the planet. Pretty ingenious actually.
I took the opportunity to talk to those that were gathered round about the pattern of the Domz disrupting the geographic stability of the planet, and warned against the approach of the Alpha section. The citizens listened to my words, but for the most part, they were focused on rebuilding on the new landmass at the foot of the volcano. They appointed a Mayor right then and there, and got to work, building with rock and soil. I helped them, but mostly, I gathered the children that had lost parents. The hovercraft, still attached to the Beluga, was invaluable in gathering people up, but the Rhinos reported that the ship itself wouldn’t fly again until they could send out for supplies...which might be some time away.
****
“And so, I looked after the kiddies while the civillians got to work rebuilding a city that they could be proud of...occasionally interrupted by Domz meteors and the like, but they’re good folk, never lose spirit.”
“What are you doing, Uncle Pey’j?”
Mei, now a gangly thing of about 16, brushed her paw past her ear.
“Just making an MDISK.” I replied. “The kids all in bed?”
“Mostly...you know Jade, she doesn’t ever get to sleep. She’s always playing with things that she shouldn’t be playing with. Now that she’s old enough to know something about anything, she thinks she can fix it. But the other kids, specially the human ones, no problem.”
“You’re a real saint, Mei.”
“Uncle Pey’j...I found that broadcast station in your workshop.” Mei looked a bit guilty. “Well, actually Jade found it.”
“Mei...what’d you do?”
“There was a message coming in on it...for the leader of the IRIS network on this planet.”
I stopped her there. “You weren’t supposed to know about that, Mei. I can’t let you get tied up in that again.”
“My Dad and you were IRIS members weren’t you? That’s how you knew to escape all of those planets. You ran away.” Mei’s tone dropped. “It’s been 5 years, and you’re still trying to fight them. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s too much for a kid like you to take on, Mei. I care for you a lot...”
“My Dad was an IRIS member...I want to help. Tell me what to do.” Mei’s ears were set, and she held my eyes with an intensity far beyond her years.
“You can look after the kids.” I told her firmly. “That’s a tough enough job for a little thing like you.”
“It’s not enough. Get someone else to run the lighthouse, someone that you don’t trust as much as you trust me. You know you can trust me, right Uncle Pey’j? We’ve been through so much together...” She perked up. “Hey...How many members are there on this planet?”
“Not many...Myself and the Mayor, one more, that’s about it.” I admitted. “We were hoping to get a few imports to come and help, but the population on this planet’s so small, that they would be noticed without any problem at all.”
“Why don’t I go recruiting? Look...I can run a diagnostic of all the people of age on the planet...” She brushed past me and went to my console. “Secondo...activate!”
I looked with surprise at the new console OS that I’d installed specifically for my dealings with IRIS, then at Mei, who looked mighty pleased with herself.
“Secondo, display the population-dense centres on the planet, and give me a layout of the public places.” Mei ordered swiftly.
“You’ve been paying too much attention, Little Miss.” I said crossly, removing her paws from the console.
She fixed me with a condescending look, a look I have no resistance to, and finally, I sighed. “Alright...” I said, reaching into my desk for an MDISK, and a portable reader, the last one I had. “I have to admit, we’re running low on time...and we don’t have enough members. If you want to help, get these folks to the Akuda Bar. Peepers should show them in.”
“You have a hideout?!” Mei’s eyes widened even more than they were normally. “Cool!”
“I’m warning you, Mei...now that you’re in on this, you can’t hang out around the lighthouse anymore. You have to communicate with me through the radio frequency on the MDISK. I can’t look suspicious, these kids will be in danger if I do. Do you still want to help IRIS?”
Mei looked down at the MDISK, then back at me. “Where will I stay?” she asked slowly.
“At the Akuda Bar, there’s some rooms available for rent there. I’ll pass some credits to Peepers to make arrangements for you.” I couldn’t stand looking at her anymore, knew I was gonna tear up. “You...be careful, you hear? Damn girl, I’m going to miss you so much.”
She embraced me tightly. “We’re going to fix it, Uncle Pey’j. We’re going to make sure it doesn’t happen anymore, that it stops at Hillys. We’re going to make sure that Dad didn’t die attatched to a cause that meant nothing.” With that, she dialed on her own radio, eyes still fixed on me. “Hey, can I get a cab to the new Pedestrian district?”
**
Now
From the day that I left the Lighthouse, it was one thing after another. Pey’j sent me messages fairly regularly, and because of my youth and resourcefulness, it was easy enough to fit into the accepting populous of the newly built pedestrian district, constructed out of what was left of the major city of the planet when we had arrived.
Some of the names on the original list were ones I recognised, from kids that had been taken in by Pey’j at the very outset of the new population. I looked them up, judged them, befriended them, and invited them to the Akuda Bar, where Peepers laid out the goal of the IRIS network, introduced them to foreign contacts, and gave them assignments that would help us with our goal of getting the Domz, and the Alpha section, out of our hair for good.
Most of the members I was asked to approach, I had known since I was little. Some of them had kids of their own now, which they entrusted to Pey’j, and later, to Jade, at the lighthouse in case anything should happen. I never saw Pey’j, because I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up the ruse if I saw him again. New members coming back from the lighthouse always reported that he took the children without question, that he wished them much success at whatever they excuse was they told him, and looked very much the same otherwise. They commented on the amount of children that had had parents stolen by the Domz, that he and Jade had their hands full all the time.
Sometimes something did happen to the IRIS members, and their children remained with Pey’j and Jade until they could strike out on their own, their childhood simply another casualty of the war against the Domz.
We made very little progress over the years at acquiring the proof we needed, but I never doubted what Pey’j had told me, that the Alpha section were involved. The Domz, and the Alpha section, moved slowly, and so we were patient. Most of our work had to be done off-world and through monitoring restricted channels. With such limited space-capable transports and related technology, it was difficult, to say the least. We lost good people to insert shunts into the communications network to be able to get what we did. Most of the time, transports into space were a one way trip.
It was always assumed that I was one of the latest members of the IRIS network by new recruits, when in fact, I was one of the oldest, first to get at the most sensitive information, last to dissect it before it went out to the ready public.
On the odd times that I would wander the streets of the pedestrian district, I would note how many of the lighthouse children were now running shops, walking the streets, doing work on the city, how many were undercover IRIS agents, blending into everyday life. 70-80% of them had been through the lighthouse at some point, taken in by the remainder of the population once they left to work with the city. Nori, busy running the store that her Mother had left untended while she worked under IRIS’s name, was a visible reminder that we were sacrificing people to attend to the needs of the galaxy.
So few people on this planet.
I often found myself wondering how Pey’j could hope to make a difference with so little to work with. But, just as often, I remembered the faith that I had in my childhood friends, how everyone had looked after everyone in the early days after the world had changed, regardless of race. Almost everyone in the pedestrian district knew about the IRIS network, and at least knew one person involved in it, or had died believing in the cause that we strove to fulfill. That alone kept them silent, if not openly helpful.
And then Jade walked into the Akuda Bar.
What was Peepers thinking, recruiting her? If captured, she would bring attention immediately back to Pey’j! She of course recognised me immediately. But, I maintained our distance. Who was looking after the children now...Did she know about Pey’j? She must, by now, if she’d kept messing around with all the things in his workshop, some of them clearly from off-world. But I kept my silence, only speaking when she spoke to me, kept my eyes on the screen. I hoped that Pey’j knew what he was doing, that eventually, he would send her into the hands of the Domz.
I would send her there first.
With determination, I set her assignments. Like me, she would have to earn her place. Like me, she came from the source of the IRIS network, so, she would have the assignments that would bring her into the centre of it all, if she survived Double H, the first recruited member of the Hillyan Militia, who sent his results directly to his supervisor there, and the mayor, and the most important member of our land based team, had been kidnapped by the Domz.
She would return him, or die. As I watched her leave, determined to fulfill her assignment, I passed a glance to Hahn.
“I know you think of her as a little girl still, Mei...but we needed her. She was the right age, physically fit, and open to the IRIS ideals. She’s well known in the community, hell, she looked after some of the kids of IRIS members.”
“I know. She’ll do great.” I said, believing every word. “Maybe...just maybe, this is the beginning of the end.”