Iron III: Worlds Like Dust - Part 1

Chapter One

Chapter One

10 weeks until Zero Hour

“Work!” the Ischian guard’s voice blared.

The tall slave, digging in the Minnesota iron mine open pit, suddenly straightened up and yelled, “I’ve had e-fuckin-nough!” through gritted teeth.

“The sun’s finally drilled into his brain!” whispered the man two places down the chain.

The alien barked, “Work!” through his helmet translator twice more.

The second time, he pointed the ubiquitous clover leaf laser rifle at the slave.

Driving his shovel into the spill heap, the tall man glared at the ten foot alien:

“Water! I need water and I ain’t gonna dig no more until I git some! See this?”

The slave wiped a slick of water from his forehead and let it drip from his palm. He added:

“Called sweat! More than a cup full on my face right now! We get two cups per day! We’re all gonna die if you don’t treat us better. Then I bet you’re gonna have your ass kicked by your boss for letting your …  pre-cious … slaves die!”

The man’s voice rose towards an enraged howl with every word:

“Ischian bastards! I won’t do no … more … shit … for … you!”

The Ischian stared through his UV visor at the strange, hairless and white, human slave. This one wasn’t going to be any use. He aimed the rifle at the slaves head and pulled the trigger slowly back with his claw. Immediately, a high pitched whine could be heard. An instant later, he fired.

The first second burst cut a neat hole straight through the man’s head, with the beam exiting his face and cutting into the soil at his feet. Before he could fall, the Ischian soldier waved the gun barrel to slice off the man’s head and brought the barrel back to slice the man neatly in half at the waist. Curiously, the head hit the ground an instant before the torso and legs crumpled either side of it. Partly cauterised, the body parts smoked and steamed between gouts of blood which began to form rivulets between the chunks of dug soil.

The men either side both tried to pull away but the anchor chain held them to the dead man’s legs. One of them vomited.

“Back to work!” the Ischian’s translator bellowed. “I’ll get the gang-master to cut you two loose!”

The slave to his right whispered to the man, bound to the corpse leg, “What was his name?”

 “I dunno. Brown, I think. Something like that.”

“Brown! Brown!” the first man began to chant.

Soon all the men in the mine had thrown down their picks and shovels and chanted, “Brown! Brown!”

One hundred slaves were taken out that night and buried alive.

***

9 weeks until Zero Hour

“Hey! Monk! Watch where you’re going! I didn’t fight a war just to … .”

The drunk had barged into me on a sidewalk, under the vast Trion Corporation Building in Washington DC. It caught me by surprise. I had just been trying to grieve for my lost – my murdered – son, Stone, but the feelings wouldn’t come; perhaps because I hadn’t seen his death. Now everything seemed out of place, like a broken tooth. I had already been trying to cope with the grief of losing my wife, Katie, and my younger son, Daniel, to the Ischian invaders.