The Native Earthlings

assian Little Bull was one of the leaders of what they called the “border-skirmishes.” They were the systematic raids on the “frontiers” by isolated cells escaped captives. Cassian was one of the few who wasn’t in captivity at the moment, but fighting for those of his people who were. He lived like an outlaw and never slept in the same room twice, except for the twelve times that he’d been in jail. They’d tortured him when he was in jail, and tried to convert him to their religion, but he’d refused—so they’d tortured him even more. He still carried all of those scars, some less proudly than others, and gave up to twenty speeches a day to help the uprising. But that was in his heyday. He was getting a bit old for this kind of work, and he knew it. But a descendant of Geronimo never gives up!

He called his group the Urban Warriors. Their jungle was the city skyline, their earth the hard concrete sidewalk, their buffalo—to hunt—the invaders of their territory, their weapons modern machine guns!

Cassian stood with his back to the wall and motioned quietly with one hand: he waved forward with a pointed finger. Earlier that day they’d outlined their plan for ambushing the armored car. Everyone knew exactly what they had to do.

“Quietly”—he made a twirling motion with his hand—“circle them. Wait till I give the signal to attack.”

They moved silent as wraiths towards the approaching armored floating car. Every day at that time the patrol passed. They’d stolen the codes to enter the fortress, but needed the car to get in.

The car floated within ten meters of the group, never noticing the cold shadows exiting the dark alleyway. As the group surrounded the vehicle every member watched for the signal from Cassian. Suddenly, Cassian let out a loud scream, and three of the ten man squad switched on bright floodlights.

“We have you surrounded,” Cassian said, “Come out with all extremities up and you won’t be harmed.” He waited a few moments for the driver and gunner to comply.

The floating car remained still as ever.

“Come out now! This is your last warning. If you’ll look around, you’ll see we are armed with mini-guns. Your only escape is up. We can create a wall of fire covering your escape route, and you will be destroyed.”

He waited a minute, and nothing happened. Then, slowly—very slowly—the top air-tight hatch began to creak open. First just a crack, then the whole thing swung open.

“Get out here!”

The beings inside exited slowly, and got out and stood in front of Cassian by about a meter. Cassian gazed at them quizzically. They were more machine now then man—if they ever could be called that even. They, he could see, were just slaves like he had once been; they were badly mutilated, brainwashed, and grafted with special limbs to do only one task: drive and shoot a floating tank. Whatever they were, Cassian thought, they were not human.

“Bernie, tie them up and toss ‘em in the alley. Don’t hurt them…”

“Boss?”

“Just do it!”

“Good luck, sir,” Bernie said, then he and the other seven troops disappeared into the night.

Bernie tied the drivers up, then the squad regrouped while Cassian and another member entered the tank. Out of his backpack Cassian retrieved his voice changers, to use when they needed to enter the fort. With one last gaze at the beautiful city skyline, he closed the hatch, wondering if he would return home—home? did he have a home?—from this mission. It would be his last, he decided right then and there. No more. Too much stress.

Cassian spoke to his copilot: “So what do you think of Mrs. Field’s?”

“Sir, I’d feel more comfortable if we kept our informants anonymous.” He looked around uneasily.

Trying to ease the situation, Cassian looked to the upper bulkhead and said: “An extraordinary woman, that Mrs. Field’s, don’t you think?”

“You mean you know her?”

“I was talking about the cookie.” He blew out a deep breath, smiled devilishly and started up the machine. “Let’s go.”

They drove the tank almost to the end of its patrol line, then circled back and started heading towards the fort.

The fort was the most massive edifice anywhere on the planet. The outer layer consisting of a meter of reinforced concrete, it was resistant to a nuclear blast. The framework was said to be made of some otherworldly metal which was twice as strong as steel and as light as aluminum. It was basically an ugly building to look at. It was pyramidal in shape, and completely light gray in color. It blended into an overcast sky perfectly.

Suddenly they were at the gate, and Cassian had to snap his fingers three times in front of his face to make sure he was awake.

He looked down at the stolen code, then punched it into the transmitter: JÇthXeaÃÄ wondering what it meant. The heavy gate slid open silently, and the tank floated in, coming to a rest in a parking area next to three hundred identical tanks.

Cassian looked at the copilot for a second, then broke out into a nervous laugh.

Killing the laughter, the duo leapt from the floating tank and discreetly slid their way into the fort proper. Cassian noticed how quiet it was, “This isn’t right—something doesn’t feel right, it’s just too quiet. I mean—I know this is the night shift and all, but where are the other patrols—”

He was cut off when his copilot grabbed his shoulder, “Settle down, boss.”

Cassian and the copilot both spoke into the voice changers to speak the second code, then stared at the door for a moment.

The copilot nodded his head toward the door, indicating that Cassian go first. They both took deep breaths and went into the fort—

The second they entered the fort every light in the main lobby area lighted up at once and both Cassian and the copilot had to squint not to go blind.

Cassian stared around the room dumbfounded. The two drivers of the tank stood in one corner of the room, chatting with a “normal” person. The other members of his squad lay in the other corner, with their throats slit. He rushed towards them, but suddenly a voice rang out: “Stop!”

“I recognize”—his eyes went blank with the look of comprehension and disbelief at the same time—“that…voice.” The last syllables were sputtered out. “Bernie you stupid cockney bastard! You collaborator—”

“Call me what you like, but I’ll survive, while you—and your prized rebel cell—won’t.” Bernie said.

Cassian sat in the concentration camp—called a “reservation” by his captors, but a prison camp nonetheless. He was sitting in a corner, freezing in the cool December air. He wrapped a thin blanket around his shoulders and breathed onto his knees, then in his hands—cycling back and forth. He finally realized the blanket was useless, and threw it to the ground. He thought of his dead comrades-in-arms. They were of all races. Three were European, one other was Native American like himself—they were, of course, the best fighters and the most used to the reservation system—two were African and the rest were Asian. The Teutonic men were some of the best fighters too, which is what puzzled Cassian so much. Bernie was of German/Teutonic descent, he should have been his best warrior, not a collaborator—and a dead one at that. Two days earlier they had executed him and thrown his body in with the other human’s dead. Cassian had watched but without glee—one more human life destroyed was one less chance of escaping from the clutches of The Masters.

Cassian was kept alive because of his advanced age. He could cause no more trouble. He’d have to stay on the reservation now, with the sick and the old and the very young.

He still remembered the first day that the aliens had come to earth. All humans had finally joined hands and taken deep breaths, then welcomed their visitors. When the visitors asked if they could purchase land in exchange for technology, human-kind had agreed. When they’d started taking land, and killing the humans, we’d kind of nodded and smiled and hoped it would stop soon; we were powerless to do anything about it in any case.. That’s when the history really started. With the extermination of the barbarians on the “unspoilt planet.” Earthlings had to bend to Their ways and become “collaborators”— shunned by our own people—just to get some extra food. We’d never be equal. We had lost, they had won. And now the planet was really spoilt, and it was all theirs.

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