A Simple Thing Read online

  A Simple Thing

  An Allies and Enemies Story

  Amy J Murphy

  Contents

  Foreword

  A Simple Thing

  Also by Amy J Murphy

  About the Author

  Just a Quick Note

  A Simple Thing, An Allies and Enemies Story by Amy J. Murphy

  Published by Amy J. Murphy

  www.amyjmurphy.com

  © 2017 Amy J. Murphy

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:

  [email protected]

  Created with Vellum

  Foreword

  Luc faces an impossible mission. To prove his worth to an elite fighting force, he must singlehandedly hunt down alien fugitives in the treacherous streets of Tasemar. The aliens, Humans as they call themselves, are dangerous infiltrators in the realm. But Luc faces other enemies… and knowing friend from foe is no simple thing.

  A Simple Thing first appeared in the space opera anthology, Orphans in the Black, published in June 2017.

  A Simple Thing

  An Allies and Enemies Story

  By Amy J. Murphy

  “My expectations do not matter,” Information Officer Notker said to the gathered soldiers. But his tone suggested to Luc that his expectations absolutely did matter. “What matters is service to the Council of First and to its Citizens. That is your duty to the Known Worlds of Origin.”

  Luc didn’t know the ancient-looking Notker very well, but it was easy to see how in love he was with his own inflated sense of purpose. He strutted before them in his immaculate black uniform, the Great Seal of First as his backdrop.

  “You stand between Origin and her enemies. You will eliminate the Human interlopers from our stars.”

  The Humans—the aliens that claimed to be cousin of the Eugenes. They looked like his race, but were deficient in every conceivable way and therefore, a threat. What those deficiencies were Luc did not know, and he understood enough not to ask.

  Luc guessed that the nine other members of the Infiltrator Division—Seekers—had to be just as anxious to be free of Notker and his speeches. They were due for deployment within the hour. There was still pre-mission prep to do, and this windbag summoned them for this…whatever this was.

  The Seekers wore a motley arrangement of civilian clothing, all meant to emulate the styles worn by the denizens of the three worlds targeted for infiltration. Their appearance seemed out of place here in the sleek metal lines of the stealth-clad armored cruiser, the Monican Republica, like time travelers from a rustic era, come to visit a sanitized future.

  Luc’s own dark hair had been shaved to the scalp and his skin coated with synth dye to mimic the sun-battered bronzes of the people of Tasemar. His handlers had added a sepia tattoo of a water nymph. The ink depiction of a woman’s sleek body coiled along his forearm, disappearing under the sleeve of his faded blue tunic.

  For his first mission to Tasemar, he was to be Tarsk Cleo, a water broker from Gales. The tattoo was customary for those who had completed an apprenticeship in the water trade, a vital occupation on such an arid world. Luc’s jaw still throbbed from the silver-plated false tooth where the med techs had implanted his transponder—a limited intel database with the facts pertinent to his mission.

  The room was stiflingly warm, too small for the number of bodies wedged into it. Luc stared at the imagined middle distance just over Notker’s shoulder. His brain drifted as the officer’s voice echoed in the stale air:

  “Your duty in this great Purge is to rid the worlds of Tasemar and Gillum of the Human threat. The Citizens of these worlds commit treason when they aid the Human invaders. Do not be fooled. These abominations are not the fabled children of Miri that their faith proclaims. Lies! There is no higher authority than the Council of First. And you, Seekers, are here to remind them of that fact.” Notker held his arms out, fingers splayed as if he would embrace them.

  A low growl, a non-word, sounded in unison from the men and women in the room. Nine voices raised in gruesome assent around Luc.

  He hoped none of them noticed his lack of response. But they would. After all, they were Seekers. He corrected the thought: I am a Seeker now.

  “You know your mission: Identify those that aid the enemies of the Eugenes race. Eliminate the Human threat. The time for mercy has well passed.”

  This elicited another bark-growl response. Luc added his voice a little late.

  Notker led them in the recitation of Decca, the tenets of the soldier’s creed. Luc knew it like the song of blood in his body, had known it since his conscription as a boy.

  I am a warrior of the Regime; I am a guardian of all Kindred.

  My first duty is to serve my commander, the Regime, the Council of First and its Citizens.

  My strength is the soldier beside me; I shall not abandon him.

  My mission is priority; I will never falter...

  Decca was only thing familiar in his new posting, indeed the only real constant in his life. This was as close as any soldier would get to worship.

  And Luc had come to dread it.

  It forced his thoughts to wander into darker realms thick with questions. It had been that way since Picund. Sole survivor, they called him, as if it were an achievement.

  My strength is the soldier beside me.

  But he was alone in the Known Worlds of Origin. No unit. No one that knew him. No one left from his unit to call him “Luc.” Even after six months in this new assignment and the rather intimate size of the division—barely enough for a squad by the more familiar infantry standards—his fellow soldiers remained strangers. It was frightening in its own way. Not just the solitude, but the abruptness of it. Sole survivor.

  He wore the term like this unfamiliar garb, stiff and unyielding. It did not fit. He sensed it never would. His superiors called it his reward, this reassignment to the Seekers, a special division for lone agents sent out to track down non-reg species or anyone that First deemed an enemy.

  Notker signaled their dismissal. Relieved, Luc made for the door. He activated his embedded transponder and cursed at the information superimposed over his optic nerves. Precious little time left.

  “Sub-officer Lucrid Eno. A word,” Notker called.

  Suppressing a sigh, Luc turned and fell into attention.

  “I have changed your mission objective,” said Notker. “You will not go with Gia and the others to Gales.” He used Commonspeak and not the customary Regimental standard, the accepted language of all soldiers. Perhaps the old man thought it made him seem approachable to subordinates. It only made Luc despise him more.

  “Sir? I don’t understand.” He’d trained for Gales. His clothing, his background story had been customized for that region. “Then where?”

  “You will still go to Tasemar, but your target location is the city of Macula.” Notker tapped a finger against Luc’s chest. “And do you know why I do this for you, sub-officer?”

  For me? You’re not doing me any favors, old man. Luc frowned down at the finger then up at the Information Officer’s withered face. “No, sir.”

  Notker’s faded brown eyes narrowed. His voice dipped into a conspirator’s whisper. “I do not trust you, Eno. Your kind, in particular… conscripts. They cull you from that mongrel stock of orphaned colonies and wretched agri-stations. You might perform well enough for the rank and file of infantry, but you do not belong here. I have fought vigilantly to keep conscripts from this division. Yet I find myself overruled.”

  The old man stepped closer. “I am not about to see my efforts ended so easily. Your knack for survival served you well on Picund. P
erhaps it will serve just as well in Macula.”

  Notker pivoted away, the only indication he was dismissed.

  Even as Luc stepped through the hatchway, a new briefing data packet for Macula popped onto the transponder’s visual display. He stored the file for now; he was already late to claim his supplies.

  The quartermaster frowned at Luc through the wire mesh screen of the resupply counter. She tapped the interface, sighed at the results on the screen and sauntered off into the recesses of the resupply. After what seemed an age, the woman returned and thrust a duffle at Luc through the window.

  “Best I got. Gia beat you to the good stuff.”

  “Of course she did,” he muttered under his breath and opened the battered bag. Inside, he glimpsed the sleek orange case of a med kit stashed among the civilian props of the fictional life of Tarsk Cleo and not much else. “What—?”

  Her tone was bored. “Basic pharms for a six-week mission. Bone knitter, pain shunts. Standard trauma kit.”

  “Weapons?”

  With a snarl, she heaved herself off her chair and disappeared into the room on her side of the counter. Luc wondered if the wire mesh over the window was less about security and more to keep her from attacking the ship’s crew. She reappeared with a sidearm. With inordinate care, she handed it to him through the window.

  Luc lofted the weapon before depositing it in the kit. Proud and new and shining silver, it seemed alien against the dingy civilian items inside.

  “A4 pulse gun. Variable compression setting,” she explained. “Good from full vac up to three atmos.”

  “What about coms?”

  “What about it?”

  “How do I report in?” Or signal for help.

  She snorted. “Let me guess. First mission with Gia?”

  “Yes,” he said with a cautious nod.

  Her upper lip curled. “You’re gonna have to see your lieutenant about that.”

  Lieutenant Gia and her two brothers paced and shifted in the throat of the metal corridor outside the level-risers. They awaited him.

  “There’s our brother Seeker,” she said, mockingly. “Quartermaster treated you real nice-like, I hope.”

  Her two brothers snickered.

  Gia was short but thickly muscled. She’d likely chew out the throat of a man twice her size before he realized it. Perhaps the handlers charged with crafting her false identity had tuned into that. Her normally short bronze hair was coiled into a ropey mass, and a coat of animal hides covered her compact frame.

  Ready to throw rocks at the other primates? The quip withered on his tongue. He knew better.

  Gia was alpha here, a point she had made in word and deed since his arrival. She claimed the other two in her team were her biological brothers. Luc didn’t point out that this was a statistical unlikelihood. Yet the three of them seemed to function as a single organism. In his secret heart, he envied them that bond. Four from his own kennel had been with him on Picund.

  Lucky number three, she’d taken to calling him, inexplicably.

  Until Luc learned why. There had been two prior soldiers assigned to her team in as many years. He got the sense that they had not lasted long. It was a story told in glimpses: a snippet of overheard gossip, an empty gear locker scrawled with old graffiti in primitive Regimental icons, a pair of discarded gloves in the wrong size with no owner to worry after them.

  “Where is it?” he asked. No salute. He doubted the lack of courtesy insulted her. “Where’s my coms?”

  “Why would you need that? Brave survivor that you are.” Gia said, smirking up at him under a spray of fraudulent freckles that rolled back her age by a few years.

  “Standard protocol for mission status and emergency extraction.”

  Behind her, the level-riser doors parted. They all boarded in uneasy silence. Luc found himself corralled to the middle, unable to keep his back to a wall.

  As the level-riser engaged, Luc allowed the duffel to slide down his shoulder and plop to the deck. He wanted his hands free, just in case. “I’ll be cut off without it.”

  “Why? Worried we won’t come and find you in Macula once you’re done playing in the sand with those freak monks?” Gia smacked him on the shoulder. “I’m doing you a favor, Eno. Macula hates Regime more than any other place on Tasemar. How long you think you can pass for one of them if you’re walking around with Regime tech?”

  “’Scripter like him? Screw it up in no time,” said Amal, the tall, wiry one on the left. “But you’re the miracle survivor of Picund. So, maybe you’ll survive this too.”

  Luc canted his head. Kept his expression bland. “I can’t tell you what that means to me, hearing that.”

  Gia made a subtle gesture with her left hand, the side that did not face the security camera trained down from the ceiling. Her two brothers pressed closer.

  “My brothers and I cannot help but wonder—what really happened on Picund? How does a backbirth conscript like you survive while an entire squad of purebred Volunteers is now worm food?” Her eyes moved up and down him, inspecting like she’d discovered something foul in their midst. “Isn’t that right, Jadoh?”

  The thick one cocked his square head. The man was the size of an automated freight mech and about half as bright. “Right. Worm food.”

  They pressed closer.

  “Word of advice, lucky number three.” Gia’s smile was ugly. “Don’t make a mess of things. We don’t like playing mop-up.”

  Jadoh’s heavy hand clamped down on Luc’s shoulder, squeezing. Chummy for the cameras.

  My strength is the soldier beside me. Perhaps that was how they meant it. The soldier beside you was the jagged beachhead meant to pulverize you should you flounder.

  “Understood, Lieutenant Gia,” Luc replied. His knuckles ached from his hands being folded into fists for too long. Finally, with a recalcitrant groan, the doors of the level-riser opened.

  Luc watched them saunter off, bound for their individual stealth pods suspended from the underbelly of the drop ship. The automated vessel would light upon Tasemar, deposit them like eggs, ready to hatch and burrow into the living skin of the world and feast on its secrets.

  Gia turned. “Good hunting, lucky number three.” It had the hiss of a curse.

  Luc arrived in the town of Macula on a Justice Day. Crowds bickered and laughed and elbowed their way through the city’s ancient cobblestone streets. Around him rose the thick shoulders of mudbrick buildings built dynasty upon dynasty. Greasy smoke from cooking fires made his eyes sting. The air reeked of sweat, exotic spices and an anxious, nearly palpable undercurrent.

  The source of the unease was apparent on street corners where Regime SSD troopers patrolled, their heavy rifles harnessed against their turnout gear and the shining black scrims of their helmets obscuring their faces.

  Anti-Regime sentiment remained at a fever pitch here. The civil war of three years ago was well over, but not forgotten. It was measured in the vacant storefronts and boarded-up husks of homes that ringed the hillside. Rebellion was in the people’s nature here and would happen again.

  By decree of the provisional government installed by the Council of First, Justice Days were considered holidays. It was common protocol on any of the dozen other worlds Luc had witnessed during his previous deployments with the Regime. Macula, holy city or not, was considered no different. The businesses and workshops built into the steep hillside were closed. Even the Temple of the Miseries perched on the hilltop was not permitted to hold services until that day’s events were over. Nothing was to distract from the public executions held in the city square.

  The square was more of a rough rectangle formed by the oldest of the public houses on one end and storefronts on another. At its center, a scaffold of glinting metal girders had been constructed, obscenely new in comparison to the buildings. The bodies of two men and two women hung over the platform. Fabric sacks covered their heads, making them look more like discarded dolls than people.

  The
hangings were over, and the crowds at the center started to thin. Two engineers, guarded by a bored-looking trio of regular infantry, adjusted the placards at the foot of the stage under the swaying bodies. Each deceased prisoner’s crime was written in Tasmarin, then Commonspeak, and finally Regimental standard.

  Theft. Murder. Treason. Human.

  “Cowards! Muckers!” It was a coarse yell in heavily accented Commonspeak. A string of curses in Tasmarin followed. Luc spotted the lone protester, a swarthy man dressed in the aged yellow overalls of a dockworker.

  The crowd parted around the man. Yelling insults at a Regime soldier was not considered a crime, but it was an excellent way of attracting the wrong sort of attention. Soon Luc was the only person near the dockworker. The man took his proximity as an invitation and staggered over.

  “Regime cowards! Real heroes, aren’t they? Hanging a man that stole food to feed his family… a woman for defending her sons.” He threw a floundering wave in the direction of the scaffold.

  This close, Luc could smell the dense vapor of scorch-rum around him like an aura. His bloodshot eyes glared at the Regime personnel as they gathered up the red and black standards of the Council of First.

  “Those muckers take our young ones,” the man slurred. “Took m’sister’s boy. Not even ten rain seasons old.”

  “Your nephew was conscripted?” Luc asked.

  “Conscript?” he hawked a glob of yellow-brown onto the dust. “Slaves, I call ’em. Those rich bastards off in Origin can make pretty speeches ’bout duty and sacrifice all they want. Don’t get my sister back her boy, does it?”

  The boy will know purpose and the honor of service. He will never wake up shivering and hungry. Something that Notker and people like him would probably never consider.