After Humanity

A short story by James Lomax, currently undertaking his Duke of Edinburgh bronze award. Part three of 12

WHEN last we saw Carlos, he had lost almost his entire squadron of riot stoppers due to a heavy battle with the natives, the Gorgons, slaves that had been set to work in the mines.

His orders were to not do anything, but he worries if the Gorgons will attack him.

Carlos’s final orders were to get his squadron cleaning away bodies, for morale. It took twenty hours in total, and everyone had to pick up the brutes. Cleaning the blood was futile.

Carlos was doing this when he heard grunting from a nearby cave. He looked in, and found a Gorgon with an injured leg. Somehow it had managed to come in here through the stampede. It looked at him in fear and tried to crawl further away into the cave, but it was already as far back as it could go. Carlos approached it, and spoke in English, even though he knew they wouldn’t understand.

“Don’t worry. I’m not here to hurt you. You’re injured and you need help. Come on. Come on.”

It continued to stare at him with a frightened look, and Carlos realised that it must have seen him firing on its kind, maybe even firing at it. It probably didn’t want his help, so he turned to go. He could here Benny shouting if he was done. Carlos looked back into that cave one last time, and when he saw the Gorgon’s face, he was flooded with an incredible sense of déjà vu. It reminded him of himself. Of his traumatic childhood.

Carlos was born at a bad time. X-88orb9, otherwise known as Earth II, was constantly under attack from the Kaves, a violent muscly red-furred race, and the second smartest species in the universe.

The Kaves said no to oppression, but took it the wrong way and attacked Earth II.

Humans were sent to combat them, so the planet became a battleground.

His parents could not afford to leave, so baby Carlos was brought up in a battlefield.

When he was nine, his parents were inevitably killed in an explosion, but they helped Carlos stowaway onto S.T.A.R.’s flagship, The Black Hole.

They told Carlos he would enlist when he came of age, and pretend that he had been living on the ship’s apartments, instead of the vents.

When Carlos came up to the recruiting officer, he could tell he wasn’t fooled, but the officer took pity on him and helped him. Carlos’s only question was how his parents knew so much about S.T.A.R.

Carlos stared back at the Gorgon in the cave as he stepped on the cart and drove away. He would help. He was not a mindless monster. Benny looked over at Carlos. “Why’re you staring at that cave?”

Carlos looked over at Benny. “I’ll tell you later.”

There were only a few hours left until darkness. Carlos took the time to prepare his basement into a comfy living space.

He went to the clinic and furniture warehouse to get what he needed, as well as a little help from his android, Carlson, a reliable android to entrust a secret to.

He managed to fit a mattress, along with medical supplies and a hole for the Gorgon to hide in, in case his house was searched.

He even downloaded medical knowledge into Carlson.

Carlos knew that helping the Gorgon would be a direct violation of the S.T.A.R. code, which, at best, was five years incarceration and, at worst, execution.

But the scared face reminded him so much of himself when he was left alone after is parents died that he felt he had to. So he would, no matter what the consequences.

So, when night fell, he snuck out.

To be continued…