Smoking Niko & Neighbor of Niko
Posted By: Marty<duffym@gmail.com>
Date: 18 August 2006, 6:58 pm
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Smoking Niko
by Martin Duffy
New York City. Five hours after 10/20 attack.
Niko stood on his rooftop puffing hard on a vintage Camel. Ancient relatives sold their RV and bought up every pack they could find when the smoking bans started. Presently, cigarettes were worth a fortune.
Business was good today, Niko reflected. Very good. New Yorkers were nervous. When people were nervous, they would come to suck smoke from Niko. The Alien fleet had attacked Earth in the early morning. Earth! Everyone had been glued to the tube when it happened. The Spartan warrior John – supposed "hero of humanity" – had been unveiled live from Cairo station. But then the feed had died. The sky had lit up. Sirens had squealed.
Niko stared at his cigarette. He kept three last packs of the ancient stash to himself today, for obvious reasons. He reluctantly flicked the butt away. Only one pack left.
New York was dead. The city star-ladder's amber warning lights were the only beacon of society.
Flashes highlighted the sky at regular intervals, and every cumulus detail etched itself into Niko's eyes; the sky had never been so crisp. The flashes illustrated a growing order into one particular patch of the sky near the star-ladder. Clouds converged, grew rigid – angular. Niko nervously thumbed a cigarette from his last pack. But then he saw a United Nations frigate descending on the star-ladder's moor. Then he heard rumbling below his feet.
He peeked over the edge and saw a fleet of warthogs speeding down the avenue towards the city. The hogs carried troops.
Niko squinted towards Manhattan. The frigate was as big as a skyscraper, albeit a small, 20th century one. Amber highlighted dark scars and framework. Guts.
Niko pushed the cigarette into the pack and tossed it off the ledge. He gazed at the star-ladder.
"Save some for John," he whispered.
Neighbor of Niko
by Martin Duffy
Later, during The Prophet of Truth's Assault on Earth...
On the night of the second Covenant attack on Earth, Niko sat on the edge of his roof staring up into the sky. The stars were angry and red.
Niko recalled an old habit of humanity to wish upon the stars in the sky. Even when they learned the ways of the universe, and even when they first settled the inner colonies they would still look at the stars and dream the impossible. And never the nearest star; never the ones that gave light and heat, but always the ones just out of reach.
That distant past was the time to be alive. Niko's father used to show him pictures of a supposed relative who had served during the first Jovian expedition. He had the same last name, had a similar nose, but probably wasn't actually a relative. The interesting thing about the man wasn't his military record, though; He was no Preston Cole. As a matter of fact, the relative was a chaplain. He didn't conquer anything, but he kept the spirits of the Jovian marauders higher than any admiral could.
The fire escape rattled and an old man named Vern Bell climbed onto the roof with a pair of binoculars around his neck.
"Niko? Surprise't see you."
"Just thought I'd watch the show", Niko said.
"Sorry for more comp'ny crowdin' the roof."
Vern was always sorry for himself. He was nothing but an old glassworks refugee now, but long ago he had been a cutting-edge xenometeorologist. He lost his mind when the Covenant War began. Vern had been guest lecturering at Cornell's off-world terraformation school, sharing his methods on reducing arctic air masses. The methods had been used with great success on Harvest, his home planet...
Now I remember.
The shooting stars became Tungsten shells, the waves of color were Covenant weapons.
"Do you miss Harvest, Vern?"
Vern said nothing.
They both sat still, on different sides of the building's fairly large roof. They weren't in each other's space, but they could feel tension building between them. Tension turned into footsteps.
Vern's face moved alongside Niko's, the old man's gaunt mouth parallel with Niko's right ear.
He whispered so quiet that the raid sirens made it difficult for Niko to hear.
"The Harvest? I -- I didn' see nothin' special before it was gone -- my lad, my junior one, I'd tuck'd him into bed every night -- you'd see little shooting stars every night -- just like the ones above us now -- on heavy nights they would glow the sky -- they would come again and again -- now I see the shooting stars and I wish they would stop. I wish it would all stop. Siren stop. The Earth. All."
Vern stood up again, Niko was paralyzed.
"I miss The Harvest so very much."
Vern stood up on the edge of the roof. He tapped his left foot against the ledge and looked up at the faint white stars far removed from the angry red and purple stars.
"But now The Earth is my home. I wish for a savior for The Earth."
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