Page 1 of The Commander

T his had to be one of those levels of hell her dad had told her about when she was a kid. Cara spent the day combing through the dead brush around Dalewood, unting for for food and searching for escape routes to get back home with an increasing sense of entrapment. Time kept moving and she had nothing to show for it.

She didn’t expect some convenient idiot to leave a vehicle lying around, ready to hijack. Vehicles were rare and well guarded. But she’d hoped for a horse or a pushcart, at least something with wheels.

She’d been confident when she’d set out earlier, but an utter lack of anything edible caught her off guard. It wasn’t looking good. Sparse trees stood scattered through the area, their leaves yellow and withered. Most of them looked dead. Brush took over the ruins of old buildings—prime territory for a stupid rabbit or two, right? Apparently not.

No greens, no mushrooms, not a single weed worth chewing. She tied together some string to set snares in the brambles before heading to the rocks next to the river to check for fish. Though the water ran clear, there were no flashes of silver.

Not willing to give up, she got wet building a rock barricade, hoping to corral something. Since that would take time, she sat down to wait, keeping her hands busy using the tall grasses near the river and her string to make a basket trap. It might catch a bird. If one was dumb enough to go under it.

Dad had been better at making baskets. Her fingers turned red and raw, trying to construct something that would hold a rat or a rabbit. By the time it was finished, she still hadn’t seen any fish. No little minnows. The area outside of Dalewood was barren. As toxic as the town.

A sinking sun stretched her shadow across the ground like the long hand of a clock. It was time to go. Staying out after dark wasn’t an option—not unless she wanted to deal with alien patrols.

Dominating the planet long before Cara was born, invading alien forces had set curfew laws for all humans. Lawbreakers disappeared fast.

Once, when she was little, Dad forced her to watch what happened after dark from the window of an abandoned building. “So you’ll know,” he’d said.

They came like starving wolves, dropping to all fours and running faster than any human. Attacking with terrifying speed, teeth flashing, and ears pointed sharply forward. Barricaded inside the building to escape a band of wankers, they watched alien patrols appear out of nowhere and drag the screaming men away like rag dolls.

The memory stayed with Cara. She never forgot the lesson. She didn’t need another reminder to avoid getting up close and personal with the ugly, hairy armed aliens.

As she returned to camp someone’s noisy sobs broke the quiet. Was that Brenda? Sounded like it. Cara was more familiar with the sound of her friend’s tears than she wanted to be. It had been a hell of a few days for them both—bad choices, broken trust, disgusting men, and terrible propositions.

Leaning against the foot of a tree, with her thin ash blonde hair snarled around her shoulders, Brenda wept as if her life was ending. Maybe it was. They were both in a horrible position now.

A few years older than Cara, lacking any survival skills, Brenda had grown up soft in an alien occupied town. Until now, Brenda had never lived outside the protection of a town or gone without factory sealed food packets and perfectly tilled community gardens. She was vulnerable in the free world, but Cara had left Brenda behind thinking she’d be safe with the other people exiled from Dalewood.

Unfortunately, Brenda wasn’t thinking clearly. She’d lost her mind over another man. That man, Andy, turned around and betrayed them the first chance he got. Waiting for Brenda to react, Cara carried a boulder of impending doom between her shoulder blades. Had it dropped the moment she’d left her friend alone?

Before Cara could ask what happened, Mighty Joe—the self appointed leader of their sad little band—got up from his spot near the fire and stomped toward her. He bragged about being forty years old, but deep lines around his mouth and bags under his eyes gave him the appearance of a man closer to eighty—a tired old rooster. He jabbed his finger at Brenda and screeched, “Your friend got into Dalewood somehow!”

Brenda didn’t look up. If anything, she sobbed louder.

“She did? What happened? Did they hurt you?” Cara took a step forward towards Brenda.

“Went to confront her boyfriend. She’s trying to get us all killed,” Mighty Joe got between them before Brenda answered.

“Brenda, you talked to Andy?” Cara’s voice shot up an octave. She couldn’t help it.

Why would her friend still want to do that? That scumbag had dragged them out of Springfield with promises of safety and better work. They’d come in his busted-up bucket of bolts—a farm-engine mash-up-vehicle that rattled with every crack in the road. Cara had been terrified the thing would break down, leaving them stranded. They’d survived all that to walk right into Andy’s trap.

Andy and his buddy had been so proud of that piece of junk. They bragged about hiding it from the local “bluey” in charge of the area. Cara didn’t know what the hell a bluey was, and honestly, she didn’t want to find out.

But she should have asked Brenda more questions. She should have asked so many questions.

Now, because of the nighttime curfew and no transportation of their own, they were stuck. Andy had known it would happen, as had Danov, the pig of a mayor of Dalewood. They’d been tricked and dumped here, where the promise of easier work involved trading their bodies for food.

When they refused, Danov kicked them out, cutting off their rations and health supplies. No food. No shelter. Nothing.

“That’s right. He caught her in his room and threw her out. Saw him drag her out past the gates. They know we’re here. But we ain’t supposed to be here. I don’t think you understand how much borrowed time we’re living on,” Mighty Joe ranted, his voice rising with every word.

“We won’t be here long. I told you I was looking for a way to leave,” Cara snapped back.

“You’re shortening the ticket, missy. I’m a good guy, but I can’t let you two pretties get us killed!” His jabbing finger struck the air between them like a dagger.

Cara tried not to roll her eyes. Mighty Joe’s group had to be the saddest collection of people she’d ever seen. It was obvious why Dalewood had tossed them out. They couldn’t work in the processing plant, couldn’t pay the alien tax, and didn’t fit the mayor’s twisted idea of “sex slave material.” Their rations had been stolen, their belongings stripped away, and they’d been left to rot.

“He said I couldn’t come back until you come back too,” Brenda said.

Cara wasn’t surprised. “What about these people here? Did you ask about them?”

“They can’t work. Do they look like they could work? The mayor has to have more people to make the tax. They’ve been short,” Brenda said, pushing herself upright and wiping her face.

“You know that’s not what they want from us. Did you tell Andy about the baby?”

Brenda shook her head, tears pooling in her eyes again. “It’s all a mistake, Cara. It must be a mistake. Andy wouldn’t do that to me. I know how he feels about me. A baby needs its father, right? What am I going to do?” She wrapped her arms protectively around her stomach.

Cara could picture the scene all too well—slimy, no-good Andy yelling, demanding to know why Brenda was in his room, calling her names, and throwing her out.

“If you can’t feed yourselves and you’re gonna make all this noise and nonsense, then just move on,” Mighty Joe muttered, tossing a stick onto the fire.

“I didn’t plan to stay here. What do you think I’ve been doing all day?” Cara’s voice came out sharper than she intended. She hated the edge in her tone but couldn’t help it.

Mighty Joe acted like she hadn’t spent the entire day trying to fix their mess.

His group had cobbled together a flimsy shelter from tax day boxes and scraps. The walls sagged, the whole thing stank of cheap biodegradable plastic, but it kept the worst of the cold out. It wasn’t much, but it was still better than what Cara and Brenda had before stumbling on the camp.

“I’m a good guy. I gotta take care of me and mine. Muzzle faced grumblers are everywhere, doing what the mayor tells them now. That’s bad enough.”

Cara frowned. The muzzle heads—alien foot soldiers—didn’t answer to any human. They followed orders from their alien masters, patrolling towns, collecting taxes, and enforcing their version of order. Their thick, guttural noises barely passed as language, and they didn’t care about the politics of humans. Mighty Joe had to be rambling again.

Her gaze flicked toward the makeshift camp. Stacks of garbage and leftover scraps surrounded the sagging shelters. The group’s thin, hollow eyed faces haunted the edges of the firelight. None of them looked strong enough for a single day’s work. Somehow, they’d managed to avoid being dragged off by patrols. Maybe the aliens ignored them because they stayed hidden after dark. Or maybe they weren’t worth the trouble.

Her stomach tightened as the knot of frustration grew heavier. Dad would’ve called this a waste of time. He used to say that humans had lost their fight long before Cara was born. “Don’t resist. Just survive. Keep your head down. Avoid people. Avoid aliens. Find your own place and don’t get involved.”

He’d lived by those words. Cara hadn’t. After he died, the peace and quiet of going it alone lost its appeal. That felt like a mistake now. He’d be so disappointed in her.

“What do you mean the mayor has a deal with the muzzle heads?” What kind of crazy talk was that?

Mighty Joe shook his head hard, waving his hands as if brushing away the question.

Figures. He never made sense for long. She let it drop, but unease pressed against her ribs. The invaders didn’t make deals with humans. They cared about two things: taxes and order. So long as humans paid and didn’t cause trouble, the aliens left them alone.

The real danger wasn’t the aliens—it was the wankers. Those killers thrived on chaos, prowling the freedom lands outside the towns. They raided, they murdered, and they fed on the scraps of human misery.

Dalewood’s camp sat far enough from the town to avoid muzzle head patrols but close enough to dodge the wankers. Wankers didn’t usually mess with tax paying towns; the aliens had too much firepower, and none of the gangs wanted to risk it. Still, Cara had spotted groups slipping in and out of Dalewood as if they belonged there.

If mayor Danov had made any deals, it wouldn’t surprise her if they involved a wanker gang. The brothel he ran in Dalewood stank of sleaze and exploitation, just the type of treat that would draw that skanky crowd here.

“I’m not sure what could be worse than this situation.” The stink of filth and sweat clawed at her nose as she scanned the camp. This wasn’t just poverty—it was decay. The people huddling near the shelters weren’t just poor; they’d stopped trying. When someone couldn’t clean themselves, it meant they’d given up. These people were already dying, they just didn’t realize it.

Brenda’s sniffle broke through the silence. “Cara, don’t you know about the commander?”

Cara turned toward her friend, the sudden question catching her off guard. “A commander? The big, hairless ones who are supposed to boss the muzzle heads?”

“You ain’t seen him if you talk like that.” Mighty Joe spat into the dirt, his voice a low grumble.

“My dad told me there were different types of aliens. He had an old radio when I was a kid. Traded information over the wire for a while. But I’ve only ever seen the muzzle heads.”

“Different types?” Mighty Joe snorted. “Is that what your daddy told you? You think you know everything, don’t you, Pretty Miss Freckles? Acting like you’re ready to take on the world, like you can do anything. But I tell you what—you don’t know shit. If you’ve never crossed paths with one of the blueys, you don’t know anything .”

“They are huge, Cara. All angles and teeth with more muscles than any creature needs and solid black eyes. If you saw one, you wouldn’t forget it. One came to Springfield before you did to set up a new mayor.”

“Did anyone die then?” Mighty Joe asked, as if death was a foregone conclusion with those guys.

Brenda shook her head. “Not in town. Outside. Wankers had tried to steal some of our tithe and got into the horses and goats.”

“Stupid wankers. Bet he put them on pikes.” Mighty Joe sounded to Cara like he relished the idea.

“We could smell them.” Cara made a face.

He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a rough whisper. “It’s worse than that. Not just them wank-off bastards, that commander kills his own guys. I’ve seen it. Strung ‘em up and left ‘em hanging outside his base like it was nothing. Did you know that?”

Cara shook her head, unease crawling up her spine. What kind of leader killed its own men? Why would he do that?

“They are a vicious lot. My parents saw one of them wipe out the Southern Resistance Army like they were plastic green army men. They had stores, nuclear shit, didn’t use any of it. Cut them down like death walking with a scythe.”

Mighty Joe’s description filled Cara’s head. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Brenda listening as the old man wound himself up.

“You have no idea do you, woman? Where you been hiding yourself?” He shook a finger at Cara.

Cara hadn’t been hiding. She’d just kept her head down. She wasn’t going to explain herself to a crazy man. “I told you we came from Springfield. No blueys there. Just the muzzle heads picking up taxes.”

“That’s his land too. You must have had a better mayor.” His bitter laugh sounded like a cackle.

“We didn’t have anyone like you guys. Who would elect a man like you picked?” Brenda asked.

Mighty Joe’s face closed down at the reminder that the towns elected their own leaders and alien go between representatives. He didn’t appear to Cara like he wanted to take responsibility for picking the man who’d kicked him out.

“The blueys are from the mother ship,” Brenda told Cara, showing a bit of her old helpful self.

“And they like things to be quiet. We gotta keep quiet, see? What do you think he will do to us when he finds us?” Mighty Joe interrupted her.

“Blueys,” Cara repeated the strange term. Testing it. The two of them made the commander sound like some sort of demon monster out of legend.

“That’s damn right. We gotta be quiet. Your friend’s gonna get us caught by the base commander. And I don’t want that trouble.”

Dalewood’s refugees shifted nervously, their wide eyes fixed on Cara. Their faces — pale, sunken, and smeared with grime—looked like melting skeletons. They hadn’t been ready to leave the town’s safety. They didn’t know how to survive out here.

Hunger gnawed at her ribs. She didn’t like it, but at least she knew how to fight it.

She dropped her pack near the fire and crouched to pull out her basket before taking a place on a log. The string she’d used to weave her floppy creation felt rough under her fingers, stiff with dirt. Dad would have told her to toss that one and start over. He was always more exacting when they had time for a lesson.

There wasn’t time for that now. A basket snare wasn’t her best option, but it might catch a bird. Maybe a rat. She’d brought back supplies to make two more, maybe three. Getting something she could cook to snag the trap and stay under a basket was a different problem. She’d worry about bait tomorrow.

“We’ll be quiet, I’ll go out again tomorrow and look for food. I just need to catch something so we can start making our way back to Springfield. On foot, or something.” She tested the basket as she talked, turning it in her hands, folding the flat soft grass into the weave. It wouldn’t hold water, but it might stop a pigeon from taking flight.

Mighty Joe laughed at her, sharp and bitter. “Catch something. I doubt that.”

“I’m so hungry,” Brenda murmured, her voice trembling. Her swollen nose and tear streaked cheeks made her look fragile. If Cara had even a crumb of food, she would’ve given it to her.

Brenda always chose men who let her down. Andy was the worst of the lot. Cara never trusted him, but Brenda clung to him like he’d been her last chance at happiness.

“That’s ‘cause you ate the last of it, bitch,” Mighty Joe growled, mood turning. He kicked a rock toward Brenda.

Cara was ready to step forward if he tried anything. She wasn’t going to trust him just because he was old and senile. “Hey. Don’t. There’s no reason for that. I’ll get food. I’ll do something. But I can’t do it right now.”

Mighty Joe muttered something under his breath and shuffled toward his hut. The others followed. Brenda, sniffing, took a new seat by the fire.

Cara let out a slow breath, her chest tightening as she turned back to the basket in her hands. Something had to change. Things had to get better. There had to be a way to save Brenda, to save herself—and, just maybe, help these people too.

Dropping her pack near the fire, exhaustion settled like a fifty-pound bag of grain across her shoulders. Damn. She’d left Springfield to escape that kind of long, dirty backbreaking day.

Brenda had nothing to say as she made a space on a makeshift bed near the fire, cocooning herself in Cara’s extra coat and closing out the world.

That was fine. Cara had baskets and snares to make before she could sleep. She needed a plan, a real solution, not this dead-end camp and its hopeless inhabitants. Tomorrow, she’d start before sunrise. She’d find food, a way out, a path back to something better. She had to.