The Enemy of My Enemy

First Place in the September 2017 Twisted Tales Contest!


The Enemy of My Enemy

It was a long shuttled ride and no one said a word. They all had their own regrets but were too afraid, too ashamed, to speak up. After all, I’d become a classified stipulation of an interplanetary armistice, a treaty finally achieved after years of war. Still, every man held his head high in honor, six Aegis Marines in dress uniform escorting me to the Quorum of Worlds. I was a dead-man walking.

Our group was received by a stout alien, like a toad with over-sized eyes. His own attendants hovered closely – four conflict droids, polished to a blackened sheen, but that didn’t fool me. Damn things had killed enough of my men, leaving no question of their ability. “Welcome to the Quorum of Planets, General,” the alien nodded. “It’s a pleasure.”

“A pleasure?” I doubted. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Of course.” He motioned us to follow.

The trek to the Quorum felt like a hundred miles and I could hear the crowd grumbling inside, the dull roar of an anxious audience. “So, what about you?” I asked my tiny escort, “You have any idea what’s about to happen?”

“It’s hardly my place to say, sir.” Paired doors swung wide, the masses suddenly quieting to an eerie silence. “Illustrius Quorum of Worlds!” the alien called. “I present General Noah Alred of Earth!” Then with a final salute, I stepped inside alone, the entrance closing solidly behind me. Outwardly confident, I approached center stage, facing thousands of aliens from across the galaxy.

“Salutations, sir,” A slender gray alien in flowing white robes greeted from atop a lofty pedestal.

“Back at ya,” I replied. I’d never been more out of my element, alone on an alien world and feeling a bit betrayed by my own. “So, I guess I’m some kind of sacrificial lamb in the lion’s den here.”

“I’m not quite sure of your sentiment, but it sounds like a reference to a kind of predator and its prey.”

“Guess I’m just feeling a little cornered.”

“I see,” the arbiter noted and the crowd grumbled.

“Listen, I know I’m not exactly popular here, but I only did what I had to.”

“War tests even the best of us. Are you well, general?”

It was a peculiar question. “Uneasy I suppose, staring into the face of inevitability.”

“You are, or rather have been, the face of your planet’s war effort. General Noah Alred, Hammer of Earth, The Ferelian Nemesis. Later, General Noah Alred, the Honorable.”

“Honorable?” I scoffed. “That’s a new one.”

“Has no one told you?”

“I only know that a condition of the treaty was that I be surrendered to the Quorum of Worlds, effective immediately. Honestly, I don’t have a goddam clue why.”

“General, you’re the reason we pursued an armistice at all.”

“Me?”

“You’ve been a champion of your people, a tremendous leader and cunning strategist. Your forces battled us in such a way, we’d never seen. So, it was that much more of a surprise when we discovered a truth in the hearts of humans, a sympathy we’d missed. At first, when your Earth ship landed on Phelia, human terraforming tragically destroyed its sentient microbial population. We perceived an attack and never questioned the nobility of our retaliation, never reconsidered our own miscalculation. It led to war, and for better or worse, our conflict created you, a legend even among non-Earthers, absolutely unstoppable.”

“I did my duty.”

“Yes, but then…you stopped. You withdrew from the siege of Nophthalos.”

“Our directive was to destroy the planet, eliminating a critical outpost. Razing it would’ve turn the tide, but our intel was incomplete,” I knew. “There were children, families…schools and clinics. I’m no butcher. I disobeyed my orders, even risked a court-martial."

“You showed a consideration we didn’t expect. So, we capitulated on the off-chance of an accord.”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter. The war’s over and men like me are obsolete.”

“Not quite. General, you’re easily the most brilliant commander in the galaxy.” Suddenly, a presentation materialized overhead, a holographic representation of the Milky-Way rotating on a virtual axis. Labeled with dozens of inhabited planets, whole star-systems went absolutely dark. “For years we’ve been silently fighting two enemies on different fronts, but our forces are spent and can no longer keep the darkness at bay. The Void…” he paused with regret in his eyes. “The Void is an evil that cannot be reasoned with. It consumes whole suns, and we need your help.”