Silhouette (7 page)

She sat at the Burmin’s desk and thumbed through some files. Her Ocu translated the few words it knew, but it could not translate enough to help Silhouette make sense of any of the information. The Ocu also could not sync with the data system, so how was she going to gain intel when she could not understand a lick of the language or access the digital data? She decided to fall back and figure out her problem in a safer location.

Silhouette moved back outside and crawled into the qoot pens where it was cramped, dirty, and full of buggy little critters— but it was safe, probably. The creatures were docile and did not care to stir while she moved around them. She hid and waited until morning for Slits to arrive at work.

She tracked Slits’ movements throughout the day. Much of the Burmin’s time was spent at its desk, and the rest was used up wandering around the shipping yard and hollering at underlings. It kept to populated spaces, except during its breaks. The Burmin found solitude twice during the day with a smoke in its hand during brief walks in the qoot grazing field. Silhouette had found ample opportunities to strike, but she had to be certain that no one would see her. Patience. She would watch him again tomorrow.

The work day was over and Silhouette crept back into the office after all of the Burmin had left for the night. She once more flipped through the physical files on Silts’ desk, this time recording images of them with her Ocu. She again retreated to the qoot pens. In her seclusion she was able to take her time scanning through the documents. She could understand the Burmin language better spoken than written, so she had her Ocu read the messages verbally in her mind.

Words jumped out that she recognized. Slaves, transfer, move, sell, price. She had heard the language all throughout her young life as a slave to the Burmin. Much of it still made no sense, but some of it had been beaten into her. She had to understand basic commands and quantities of things and calendar dates if she expected to survive. Compiling her information with the little bits her Ocu could visually translate was a complicated puzzle and she spent most of the night putting it together. Her empty stomach only made the task more frustrating and difficult.

As the pieces fell into place, she realized she had found the information she was hoping to discover. The next prisoner transport was scheduled, and she had the date. In three weeks Davi and the others would be taken aboard the Juggernaut where they would be processed and put on transports toward planet Burm. She had the ship’s planned arrival and departure time, as well as its identification number. All she had to do now was wait, but revenge, too, had been put on her schedule. She was not going to simply bide her time while she had the chance to enact vengeance in her father’s name. Slits had hell to pay.

* * *

The next workday began and the darkness hungered for a guilty soul.

Near the day’s end Slits had moseyed outside and lit a smoke. The Burmin had wandered into the field among the grazing qoots, unaware of the stalking eyes in the shadows.

From inside the animal pens, Silhouette let out a belly full of laughter followed by an imitation of hushed chatter, all the while eying the Burmin through a gap in the wall’s wooden slats. Slits stomped out his smoke and then marched toward the conspicuous human sounds to investigate.

“Shh, the Burmin heard us,” Silhouette said to herself. “Hide!”

Slits pulled the barn door fully open, letting a rush of air blow into the pens and causing the Burmin’s sliced ears to swing in the breeze like floppy window blinds. Slits was pudgy, for a Burmin, but still quite imposing. The Burmin grumbled as it walked down a row of pens, peering into the shadows. “Slave,” understood Silhouette, and something like “trouble” or maybe “death” was spat in anger as it pushed aside piles of hay and stacks of empty buckets. A pair of curious qoots moved to the open doorway from the field.

Slits approached the pen in which Silhouette was hiding and sucked in a deep breath of the air, chewing on it like it was tasting for her scent. Her suit bent the gloom that surrounded her, creating a deep shadow, an inconspicuous darkness, and as she lay covered in animal filth she had ensured that any human odor was masked by the wretched stink of the pens themselves. She did not exist. There was only shadow and nothing else.

The Burmin took no notice of her and walked past the pen, unsuspecting of the death which crept behind, stalking her prey. Her footsteps matched the Burmin’s in contact with the ground, but she did so in short leaps, gaining on her victim with every stride. Slits stepped onto a wet cloth which clung to its boot and it shook off the dripping rag, kicking it beside an upturned bucket. Silhouette grabbed the rancid cloth and jumped onto the bucket, using it to pounce onto the Burmin’s upper back. She caught Slits at the end of an exhale and whipped the cloth around its neck, wrenching it tight.

The Burmin’s head turned red. It swung its body around, reaching its arms back to grab Silhouette, but her feet were planted squarely in the middle of its back and her hands pulled up and away out of reach. Slits scraped at the cloth around his throat, its brown liquid dripping down the Burmin’s chest. The air filled with a cloying musk.

Not a sound could escape Slits’ throat, though it tried. The Burmin flung its body around and slammed its back against a post, but Silhouette swung left and dodged most of the impact. Slits tried again, slamming against one of the pen walls, and sensing this Silhouette pulled herself up onto the Burmin’s shoulders and only took a portion of the blow. It stepped forward to try backing into the wall once more. Silhouette jumped back off its shoulders and yanked down with every bit of momentum she had, pulling the Burmin down to the ground and knocking its head against the wall as it fell.

The large Burmin dropped its full weight on top of her, smacking her hard into the ground. She could not breathe. Silhouette held tight onto the cloth, pulling with all of her remaining strength. She would catch her breath eventually, but she wanted to make sure that this Burmin would never breathe again. The pudgy beast twitched and writhed, grinding Silhouette into the hard packed dirt. She was beginning to faint and struggled to focus her thoughts, struggled to fight back against the darkness that pulsed in her brain with every heartbeat. She held onto the rag at Slits’ throat and at some point the flailing came to an end. She continued to hold for a while longer, unable to relax her muscles while trying to pull in small breaths. When she was positive that Slits was unconscious she released her grip and squirmed out from under the heavy body. Every attempted breath surged immense pain throughout her body.

Her breath slowly returned and she regained her composure. There was no time to dilly-dally; she had to finish the job, clean up, and get out, leaving no evidence behind. Silhouette threw the cloth back into the swampy mess on the pen’s floor and scooped some qoot feed into a bucket. At the sound of the goopy, grainy bits splurking into the pail the two curious qoots slugged over in a hustle. Silhouette dumped the feed onto the Burmin’s face, neck, and chest. She found the splatting sounds satisfying.

The sluggy beasts pulled themselves onto Slits, crushing the body as they slurped up their snack. Silhouette heard bones snap, and she saw Slits’ skull collapse under the weight of their hulking masses.
 

What a tragic accident
, thought Silhouette.
You fucking shit.

* * *

As the days and weeks passed, Sue could not help but think about home. Not Nye, this planet was not her home, not anymore. The only remaining family member she had here, Davi, was going to leave this forsaken world one way or another. There was nothing left for her here. She thought about Erde, about her friends, she even thought about her apodment where she could wake up to hot coffee and warm cinnamon rolls; she both giggled and wept at the thoughts as her stomach tingled with anticipation. Her heart ached and she was exhausted, but a hot shower would make her feel alive again and a cozy bed would put everything right.

Months of stress and intermittent meals had thinned her shape, sleeping with an ear to the ground and one eye open had drained her mental strength, but waiting for the prisoner transport to arrive was her toughest challenge yet. The combination of boredom and anticipation that piled on top of her fatigue was not good for her psyche. Davi was on the receiving end of much of her frustration, being the only person she communicated with. It was not until Davi started showing concern for her that Sue realized her irritability was becoming a weakness. She had to regain control and focus her thoughts away from her desires and missing comforts. So she spent the next days piecing together what she thought the Presider could be up to. Leslie would have been in position as Archon of Erde for months now.
What policies has she enacted? What connections has she made? As Archon she must have attended at least one meeting at the Intergalactic Senate. Was her voice heard? Does anyone out there care about humanity? At the very least she must have made progress in spreading the word among the human worlds about rebuilding the Cooperation, even if not yet making a public statement.
 

More political leaders of the human worlds must have been invited to talks and word of unification would have spread, but there would still be those who only see all of it as a play for power on the Archon’s part. Why should Erde lead the way? Some would surely ask. Some will be afraid to break ties with the alien powers that they have already entangled themselves with, but a few may have already thrown in their support for cooperation. The big swing of support will come from the liberation of Nye, and so the Presider must be strengthening and preparing the Erdian fleet. Had she told anyone else of the mission? No, there is too much risk in sharing it. She had to find other reasons for strengthening the military, perhaps to fight off the Yarlian gangs and other small threats, but however she’s doing it she just better be on schedule.
If Sue were to take down the ship as planned but the Presider did not arrive on time to finish the job, then it would have all been for nothing. The Burmin would simply rebuild, they would send in another Juggernaut to oversee the planet. She and Davi would be dead, but Sue had no reason to lose faith in the Presider. She knew that her leader would pull through.

Just as Silhouette unquestionably trusted in the Presider, Davi must trust his sister beyond any doubt, and so Sue shared everything with her brother, everything that had happened to her since she was taken away from her family. Night after night they continued their discussion and she shared everything about her trainings, her Ocu implant, her friends, her apodment, and life at Crater Bay.
 

“Presider Folami was my surrogate mother,” said Sue. “Growing up with her I learned everything about human history. She said that they don’t teach about the Cooperation in schools anymore, that its not considered relevant. There hasn’t been a Cooperation in hundreds of years, but she’s read everything there is to know about it, about how it was the foundation of humanity’s interplanetary government. It was there from the beginning when we first left Erde to expand to other worlds.”

“That’s crazy,” said Davi. “We never learned any of that here on Nye. I don’t know much about history at all.”

“Well let me catch you up. The Cooperation was disbanded by an alien invasion back when we lived on only a few planets. Humanity recovered from the attack, but after all of the chaos had ended each planet decided to govern itself. They never unified again and it’s been that way for centuries. We’ve continued to colonize more planets, and in doing so we’ve attracted more attention from the alien parasites that plague our worlds now. Unfortunately the Intergalactic Senate doesn’t give a damn about us. If the universe were merely a single planet, humanity would be seen as nothing more than a colony of ants on its surface. We’re not worth the trouble. The Verse and all of its other sentient species are so much bigger than us.”

“So what you’re saying,” said Davi, “is that we don’t stand a chance.”

“On the contrary,” said Sue. “I’m here to give us a chance.”

Davi was in awe of everything he was hearing from his sister. The history lessons, the mission plans, and the wonders of life outside of a Burmin Nye; he interrupted frequently to ask questions. He also shared his own life, a life where exhaustion and heartache touched every tale leading to their father’s death. “After Baap died I didn’t care about anything, including myself. Life was…easier if I didn’t care. I just did whatever because I had nothing left to worry about. That’s how it was until you came back into my life. Now I have something worth caring for again.” He wanted to help her. If following her instructions was the best he could do then he wanted to do it right. He found ways to use his muscles, make himself sweat, and stay mentally strong. He was going to be as prepared as he could make himself. His little sister was going to try to save the day, and he did not want to fuck it up for her.

* * *

Sue returned to her brother one night with a heavy heart. “Dad’s grave,” she said. “Tell me where it is.”
 

“It’s not a pretty place,” said Davi.

“I understand, but I need to go there.”

“Alright,” said Davi. “It’s not too far north of Vix. Just follow along the hills west of the city until you spot the trenches. You won’t miss them.”

“Where do I find him?”

“Third row from the back. I put some white rocks and red flowers nearest to where I think he was buried, but I don’t know if they’ll still be there.”

 
She snuck out of the compound as she had snuck in by hiding in a vehicle’s outer storage compartment. Silhouette kept track of the travel time and midway between the compound and Vix she opened the hatch and rolled out of the vehicle. It was a fast and rough tumble, but the shadowsuit saved her skin from road rash. She walked in the darkness of night and watched the rising sun lift itself from behind the westward foothills.

The grave-site was several miles from the north side of Vix. Silhouette had made it there during the early morning as the sun cast a dark shadow over the rows of burial mounds set beneath the foothills. She walked over to where several open trenches had been recently scraped. Heavy machinery was left alongside the deep trenches, ready to fill in another mass grave. She passed near a crow which pecked at a piece of trash while another cawed to its partner from a dead tree. The morning dew evaporated from the ground and created a thick, musty odor in the air.