I've been obsessing over the raid on the supply depot. Ever since Maren revealed that information, since we decided that we'd stop hiding and start fighting a war, my thoughts have been consumed by it. Replaying it over and over in my mind. Day and night, even when I'm lying on the cot, staring at the ceiling, I still see it.
It's not just Hestia. It's not the moment that I froze, or the moment the explosion knocked us off of our feet. Maybe that's exactly where it should be, the consequences I should focus on because I've decided to push for something that will endanger us - endanger Hestia - even more.
It's… what Ivan said. What Arden said. If there's no perfect plan that can't go wrong, if there's no perfect leader that can make a plan where nothing goes wrong, then the only answer is to make plans where the things that go wrong result in the least harm.
That's obviously Ivan's philosophy, because if I think that way, the only answer is to go back into hiding. Take all our supplies, leave behind what can't be hidden, and move somewhere we've never been, using our newly acquired vehicles to move far away from the alien civilization where they'll never think to look, and live out our lives in peace here. But even Ivan didn't follow that plan. Even he couldn't commit to just… giving up hope of going home. And I… don't think I'm in a position to criticize his plans, when his compromise is why I'm here now and not in that hellish camp, watching everyone I know move on while I stay trapped in the first lesson over and over until I go fully insane.
I don't have to ask Alistair. I know what his plan would be. What his goals and his priorities are. Now that we have bigger guns, better vehicles, and more information, we can make a bigger crater if we explode slamming into them. And… I get it. Maybe he's right, too. If we can't win, then we can just… make it hurt the most when we die. I just…
I can't. Agree to Hestia dying like that. I can't.
And so, I'm left in a cycle, over and over. My mind keeps spinning. The raid keeps replaying. How do I fix it? If I could go back, change the plan, how could I make it so that Hestia was never hurt. I can't… Not bringing Hestia is the answer to that, but even for me, I know that's too cruel, too cold. Would it be any different if it had been Jess? Mikhail?
I don't want to answer that.
And so…I keep thinking about it.
We start planning right away, even while I'm trapped in my own personal recursive loop. Each day, we put our heads together, voices low and urgent. We have so much to do, so much to prepare. But even after days of not reaching an answer, we're still eager. The room is buzzing with energy, with excitement.
I'm... torn. I can't help the rush of excitement that we've finally gotten an advantage the aliens don't realize we have. And our previous attempt proves that we can do it. But it also... was luck. Luck and surprise, and we still nearly lost two of our people doing it.
"It's different." Alistair says, arms crossed, leaning against a wall. "We don't just have scraps, pistols, and half-working rifles this time, Sarah." He gives a faint smile. It's not the first time he's reassured me, but he doesn't seem tired of it yet. "We have a mini-armory now. And we know how to move fast. We'll figure it out."
I don't know why I trust him so easily on this. I suppose... I just need to. Because if I don't, we just stagnate. We squander this opportunity and we instead have to plan to hide elsewhere. We divest and run elsewhere and hope that the inevitable counter attack can't track us down.
But I don't want to move. We earned this place with our blood. It's violent, dangerous, and hostile, but so is every other place on this damn planet. But it's not an empty desert. And I think...there's some safety here. Living in a tidal pump station like this... I think the aliens won't expect us to willingly risk ourselves. They'll be looking everywhere else before they think to look here.
And that's why we have to move first.
"So what's the target?" I ask, looking at Maren, who has the tablet pulled up. She's scrolling through the data, her brow furrowed.
"There's a lot of options." She admits, shaking her head. "Honestly, the biggest problem is choosing where to start. What's the goal?"
"Kill them." Alistair says, without hesitation.
Her lips quirk. "Besides that. Do we want to cripple them? Free our fellows? Seize control of this place and go home before they can call backup? What we do reflects that."
Alistair takes a step forward, "We could-"
"Break them." I say that. I thought it, but apparently... I thought it so hard I said it.
Maren's eyes flicker up to me. "Break?"
"That's what they do to us." I swallow. Now that I've started, I might as well continue. "They hurt us. They beat and electrocute us. They tell us to give up our names, our past, our language. They make us do useless things all day in the heat until we collapse so we can't think, can't do anything but break."
Maren's lips tighten. I know that she's thinking of her own experiences, or... maybe of others. It doesn't matter. Even if I had that damn electrocution longer because of my inability to learn the language, we all dealt with it.
"So." I lift my chin. "Let's punish them. Make them break. Hammer them over and over, make them bleed, burn everything even when it doesn't do anything for us. Hit them non-stop, make them hurt and waste their time with us until they can't think about anything but us."
"That's self destruction," Arden says from my left, "to do a strategy like that, we'd need dozens more people than we have. Maybe even hundreds. With what we have, we'll be stretched so thin that even trying to do so is just sending people on suicide missions. Even if we somehow manage to do damage in the process, when they finally focus on us we'll have no one and nothing left."
"That's if we do it wrong." I say, shaking my head. "If we make it look like we're everywhere, if they think they've lost control of this entire damn planet, then they'll have to pull back to take stock. And then-"
"That's a nice idea, Sarah, but how do we do that? We have small arms, not-"
"We attacked them wrong before." I say, cutting him off with a sudden certainty that makes me feel just a bit dizzy. "We did. Ivan did. The first Ivan did. We've been fighting on their terms, but they're a massive force and we're a tiny one, so we keep getting tiny victories and massive punishment." My eyes slide to Maren's tablet. "They have more of them than us. They always will. When we storm a depot with a bunch of untrained, half-starved, exhausted people, of course they're going to have the upper hand." I tap my fingers on the table. "We can't fight them that way."
"Then how?" Arden asks. He doesn't sound exasperated. His eyes are narrowed and he's thinking.
I take a deep breath, "We stop scavenging for supplies. Stop going into their territories, their buildings, their depots. Let's take their next supply run." I point at the green ticked line that stretches from one of the depots to their camp of humans. "Doesn't matter if we need the supplies or not. We know where they'll be, and I've seen them - they don't bother to defend it. Kill them. Burn their supplies. Disappear. Then the next one over here. And then the one over here. Don't let them get in a single supply run for the next month." My gaze turns up to Arden. "Then we blow up their hangars." I pause, then look at Maren. "We can do that, right? Figure out some kind of explosive...?"
Maren shrugs one shoulder. "Explosives are easy." A small smile twitches her lips. "I love explosions. The hard part is...making them remote detonate-able. I'll have to tinker for a bit, but I'm sure it's doable. I think... I know I can do it before you're ready to strike."
I nod. "Good." I look back at Arden. "They're used to us being pests. We hide in the walls, we steal their supplies and their manpower, and sometimes we get angry and burn something. But it never matters. They don't care because they don't hurt. So... if we're going to change something... we have to make them hurt." I lick my lips. "If we keep it up for a month, they'll get desperate. If we can blow up their means of getting resupplied, for the first time... they'll feel pressure."
"And... what point is that, Sarah?" Arden asks, voice firm, low. "Besides the satisfaction, why should we make them take us seriously?"
"B-because..." I'm... I'm just making this up as I go along, going with the frantic flow in my mind, but... it sounds good, so I keep going. And nobody else is saying anything. "When someone is pressured... that's when they make a mistake."