(no subject)
I was an illegal child. I guess I still am, but now it doesn’t matter.
In 2127, in an effort to control overpopulation, Hegemon Bush and the Senate passed the Birth Regulations Act 90210, or BRA as it was commonly called. The BRA said that families were limited to one child, except in rare circumstances when they could apply to the government for another. My parents didn’t apply. I was their third healthy child. I never really knew how many unfit-to-survive children there were, and now it’s far too late to ask.
My older sisters were identical twins. One of them was supposed to be killed in the hospital, but my father was just influential enough to bribe the hospital to give both children to the family, swearing he would kill one later. They never did. Since they were identical, my sisters took the same name and the same lives. They never really had any friends because it was too difficult for both of them to share the exact same experiences. Their lives probably sucked. Lucky for them, they were ended soon after their sixteenth birthday. One of them got a cake that year. The other ate some, I think, but it was really for one of them. They switched off every year.
There was a war going on since before they were born. It would still be going on, but we very recently beat the aliens in a crucial battle. The Battle for Earth, they were calling it on the news. Sometimes they just said the Battle. There was a hero in the Battle: an unnamed soldier. Rumor was that soldier didn’t even have a name. That rumor is true, and I know that because I know whom that soldier was.
During the war, military service was compulsory at the age of sixteen. The government figured it paid for kids’ schooling until then, so they should work off the debt they owed. Most kids only stayed in the military for a month or two. After that, they were dead, or off from a medical condition that coincidentally developed while they were out, or any number of thousands of excuses that were used. My sisters, though, weren’t so lucky.
One of my sisters was sent out. The other one stayed at home, hidden from everyone except the family. We received news one day that the sister who had gone out to war was killed. We never knew how exactly, but we were told that it was quick and probably painless. The government man who had told us that accented probably, which probably meant that it was probably neither quick nor painless. But that didn’t matter.
That night I heard my father telling my mother that it was too risky to keep one sister alive when they were both supposed to be dead and that he was finally going to keep his promise to that hospital worker he had bribed sixteen years previous. He didn’t need to, though, because the next morning her brains were on the ceiling of her bedroom. Some were on the walls, and some had dripped onto the floor overnight. But mostly, they were on the ceiling, a mess of sticky red and white goo that used to be my sister hanging from the ceiling under which she had slept for sixteen years. My father said that the strain of having her identical twin, her only friend, die was probably too much for her to handle and so she stole his gun and killed herself. He had stressed probably, which probably meant that he didn’t want me, or maybe my mother, to know that he had killed her.
Flash forward ten years. It was my sixteenth birthday. I was an illegal child, so that meant that I didn’t have to go the military. I couldn’t stay home, though, for personal reasons. I ran away. I ran to the nearest military recruitment office and signed on as an abandoned child. I didn’t have a name, and for my story, I didn’t need one. They didn’t give me one, either. Names had become like wood, a resource not to be used lightly because there was not enough of it to go around, not since Name Regulations Act 48512 (NRA as it was called), which said, in essence, that no name could be used on two different, simultaneously living people.
After I enlisted, I was sent to the training barracks. It was Barracks Group IV, Section ZZZ Alpha, situated on an out-of-the-way planet that wasn’t likely to see any action at all ever. At least, they said it probably wouldn’t see any action. They had stressed probably, which probably meant that I was going to die and they weren’t going to care. At the time, it seemed fitting; an unnoticed life, an unnoticed death.
I was shipped off right away. They didn’t ask to see my papers, which was fortunate because I didn’t have any. That’s just one of the drawbacks of being an illegal. The trip was three thousand light-years. It took about three months. Time passes slowly on a ship going faster than light, though. There’s nothing to look at, and on my ship there was nobody I wanted to talk to. Except for one person, my roommate. His name was Al. I didn’t meet him right away. When I did meet him, though, there was a big to-do about it, at least in my mind. “Hello,” he had said. It was the first friendly word anyone besides my parents had ever spoken to me. Then again, excluding my parents and sisters, only one other person had every talked to me. “My name’s Al. Sorry I haven’t been around. Been giving orders and such.”
Al was the captain of the ship. I was an extra. He had agreed to let me sleep in his room, on the condition that I do what he wanted and stayed out of his way. It seemed like the two most often overlapped, except when he wanted to talk to me. He was an interesting fellow, so that wasn’t a very difficult task. One day, when we were almost there, he asked to speak with me.
“I know you’re not quite legal,” he said.
“Why do you think that?”
“You don’t have a name. Everyone but illegals got a name. And you ain’t got papers. Everyone but illegals got papers. Is that why you’re here?” He had known me for less than three months, and actually been in contact with me hardly more than once or twice, but he had already figured out my deepest secret. He was smart, even though he didn’t quite look it.
“So what if I’m a second? Or even a third? What does it matter? I can fight them stinking alien scum just as good as if I had a name.”
“Oh I ain’t sayin’ you can’t fight. I’m just - forget it. Just forget I said anything at all. So what was it like back at your home, or wherever you lived?”
I told him everything. The whole story about how my father had bribed the hospital to keep both his daughters then killed one of them. I told him how I had to run away to enlist. I told him my favorite meal, my nighttime routine, everything. To this day, I’m not sure why I told him, but it seemed like the right thing to do.
“You know, the army’s built on people like you,” he said. “Not necessarily illegals, though most are, but people who’re running away from something. That’s why they didn’t give you trouble ‘bout not havin’ a name or papers. They thrive off you.”
Something about the way he said that last sentence scared me. I wasn’t quite sure if he was talking about the army or the aliens. “I ain’t runnin’ from nothin’,” I said, angry that I had been seen right through, and the lights went out. “I guess it’s bedtime. Good night.” Al, already in bed (he either moved quickly or had anticipated the blackout), just grunted.
The rest of the trip was uneventful. When we arrived on the planet, there was a transport waiting to take us to the barracks. There were eleven people in that transport, including Al and me. Once we had started moving, Al stood up. “It’ll take about four hours to get to the barracks,” he said. “My name is Al. I’ll be your platoon leader and you will be my platoon. Some of you look confused; that’s understandable. You’re all new recruits, after all.” That solved one mystery, at least. “Let me be the first to welcome you to Barracks Group Eye Vee, Section Zee Zee Zee Alpha.” He pronounced each of the letters separately.
“What’s your rank?” one of my platoon-mates asked, to which Al responded that he was Acting General of the Front. Everyone in the transport was awed; it was the highest rank there was. “If you’re so important, why are you training a ragtag group of new recruits like us?” asked the same platoon-mate.
“To do that, I’d have to tell you some very confidential information. We’ll be spending a lot of time together, and I’m going to need to trust all of you, and you’ll all need to trust each other and myself. Do you all swear to never repeat what I’m about to say?” We all nodded.
“We are losing the war,” Al continued. “We’ve been losing for almost a decade, but now the human race is in very dire straits. This planet we’re on is the closest inhabited planet to Earth, and the aliens are near it. Right now a battle is being fought, and probably lost by us, on the next planet out. The battle’ll probably go on for another two or three weeks, but we will lose. There is no question about that. That makes this the final frontier.
“This planet is Earth’s last hope, and you ten were the only new recruits in time to be shipped out here and the only part of the army not fighting right now. One week from now, you will all be fully trained fighting machines. If even one of you falters even for a moment, the human race is lost.” With that last remark, the ambience of the transport changed markedly. Fear spread though the small area. Each man lowered his head, staring at the floor. Everyone was thinking the same somber though: it would be him.
There was silence until we arrived at the barracks. It was empty. Al told us to put whatever we had with us in the main room. He said we’d be sleeping, eating, and doing everything besides training in there. And with that, training started.
We first learned to use the basic laser-gun. We mastered that in an hour, even all of its nuances, like how you should always aim to the right of your target and where the heat shield begins and how long you can keep your hand unshielded while firing.
After that, with only a short lunch break, we did terrain training. We learned how to use Napalm. We learned when to get behind a rock or a tree for cover and when to run through the open and how to avoid being shot at. We learned where every rock, tree, shrub, hole, and bit of dust was on every square inch of the barracks ground. That took the rest of the day. As the lights went out, Al said, “One down. Six to go.”
The rest of the week went much like the first day, with each day rising in complexity and difficulty. We had a morning course in different weaponry, then a lunch break, then tactical training. Every night, we fell asleep immediately after dinner. Cramming years’ worth of training into a week was the most difficult thing any of us had ever done. Al, however, never seemed to tire. That’s why he’s Acting General, we all thought.
The fifth day, Al gave us a break. He let everyone sleep an extra two hours. After half an hour of extra sleep, though, he woke me. “You’re the best one I have here,” he said. “Come with me. I want to show you something.” Half asleep, I followed him to the armory room. He walked in, and scanned his palm on the sensor, the input a code. A door I wasn’t even aware had existed opened. He led me through and pointed to the far wall.
“That,” he said, “is a Plasmatech bomb. “It sends out a special type of energy that vibrates plasma in the blood so hard that the blood literally explodes outward through the skin. It’ll kill every living thing within five feet. The problem is that you have to be right there to activate it, so it’s a suicide bomb. Take it. Once we’ve lost the battle, run into the biggest group of aliens you can find and detonate. You just push that red button.” The button was impossible to miss, even though it was covered with a plastic shield that had to be lifted in order to press it. There were two bombs there. He gave one to me and put the other in his pocket.
After giving me the bomb, which fit neatly in my pocket, we went back to the room. I went back to sleep. I didn’t see where Al went. An hour later, we woke up. “Today is the last lesson,” Al said. “After this, we go out in the field and scout out the best location to do battle. But today, we learn how to distinguish the scum from ourselves. Does anyone know what the aliens look like?” Everyone stared blankly. It was embarrassing to be fighting a war and not know just what you were fighting against.
After a while, Al said, “They look just like us, but they’re a hive mind so they all look a little dumb ‘cuz they can’t think for themselves. We think the queen or king or whatever there is controlling them’ll look even closer to us than a normal one of ‘em would. That’s the biggest problem, their looks. They all may as well be one thing, so they can tell all of us from themselves, but we have a tough time seein’ what’s them and what’s us.” He brought a picture out of his pocket. It looked like a normal human. “That’s one of ‘em. The easiest way to fight ‘em is to remember what all of you look like and shoot anything that isn’t you or me. Lesson over. Grab your guns and let’s go out.”
We went out and heard the loudest sound I’d ever heard. It was ear-bleedingly loud, but there was no mistaking that it was alien ships. “Take cover!” shouted Al. “Don’t shoot ‘til you can see ‘em. Don’t give away your position until you shoot!” With those words, we all scattered. I ran to the nearest hole, and Al followed. I didn’t notice until we were both below ground, periodically sticking our heads up for a second to take stock of what was happening.
There was a scream outside. I guessed one of us was just killed. The look on Al’s face told me I was right. I pushed my head up for a second, and saw that at least a thousand of those scum were marching towards the hole. “They’re coming!” I shouted to Al.
“I know,” he said. At that moment, he looked dumber than he ever had before. He smiled. It was the smile of a man who knows he’s going to kill an animal he’s been hunting. I reached into my pocket, and flicked the plastic case open while I brought out the Plasmatech bomb. “Put it down,” Al said. “You’ll kill yourself if you push down.” My hand was resting on top of the button. Al’s pistol was pointing at my head.
“If you shoot me, my hand’ll fall on this button.”
“You don’t want to die, do you?”
“You said it yourself. I’m already dead. I’m an illegal, and I’m a human. You’re not dead yet, though, are you? You’re the king. If I kill you, we win, don’t we.” It wasn’t a question.
“You are the best one I had. A pity you have to go like this,” he said as he shot, aiming straight at my face.
Time stood still. I saw the beam coming at me, but I couldn’t move away. I could just stand there, as the bright light seared my retinas, and then, in the last moment that I could see, exploded into the dirt to my left.
“Rule number one,” I said. “Always aim to the right.” I pushed my hand down as hard as I could. I felt a lot of pinpricks, all over my body, like needles were being shoved into my skin in every possible place. I heard Al screaming in pain, and with him every alien on the planet, and in the universe.
The other eight men survived. Three of them had been wounded, but only one wound was serious. Two hadn’t even fired a single shot. They regrouped and searched for survivors. They found all of the aliens’ corpses around the hole, and mine and Al’s bodies, barely recognizable, inside. The walls dirt walls of the hole ran red with my blood and blue with his. The survivors immediately went back to the barracks and got on the faster-than-light radio to Earth. They told them everything that had happened, and back at Earth they figured that the hive-mind had infiltrated their military. He had probably been giving them military secrets, tactics, and technology, and that was why they were losing.
Rumors soon spread of an unnamed hero wining the war and saving the human race, but probably no one knew who it was.
In 2127, in an effort to control overpopulation, Hegemon Bush and the Senate passed the Birth Regulations Act 90210, or BRA as it was commonly called. The BRA said that families were limited to one child, except in rare circumstances when they could apply to the government for another. My parents didn’t apply. I was their third healthy child. I never really knew how many unfit-to-survive children there were, and now it’s far too late to ask.
My older sisters were identical twins. One of them was supposed to be killed in the hospital, but my father was just influential enough to bribe the hospital to give both children to the family, swearing he would kill one later. They never did. Since they were identical, my sisters took the same name and the same lives. They never really had any friends because it was too difficult for both of them to share the exact same experiences. Their lives probably sucked. Lucky for them, they were ended soon after their sixteenth birthday. One of them got a cake that year. The other ate some, I think, but it was really for one of them. They switched off every year.
There was a war going on since before they were born. It would still be going on, but we very recently beat the aliens in a crucial battle. The Battle for Earth, they were calling it on the news. Sometimes they just said the Battle. There was a hero in the Battle: an unnamed soldier. Rumor was that soldier didn’t even have a name. That rumor is true, and I know that because I know whom that soldier was.
During the war, military service was compulsory at the age of sixteen. The government figured it paid for kids’ schooling until then, so they should work off the debt they owed. Most kids only stayed in the military for a month or two. After that, they were dead, or off from a medical condition that coincidentally developed while they were out, or any number of thousands of excuses that were used. My sisters, though, weren’t so lucky.
One of my sisters was sent out. The other one stayed at home, hidden from everyone except the family. We received news one day that the sister who had gone out to war was killed. We never knew how exactly, but we were told that it was quick and probably painless. The government man who had told us that accented probably, which probably meant that it was probably neither quick nor painless. But that didn’t matter.
That night I heard my father telling my mother that it was too risky to keep one sister alive when they were both supposed to be dead and that he was finally going to keep his promise to that hospital worker he had bribed sixteen years previous. He didn’t need to, though, because the next morning her brains were on the ceiling of her bedroom. Some were on the walls, and some had dripped onto the floor overnight. But mostly, they were on the ceiling, a mess of sticky red and white goo that used to be my sister hanging from the ceiling under which she had slept for sixteen years. My father said that the strain of having her identical twin, her only friend, die was probably too much for her to handle and so she stole his gun and killed herself. He had stressed probably, which probably meant that he didn’t want me, or maybe my mother, to know that he had killed her.
Flash forward ten years. It was my sixteenth birthday. I was an illegal child, so that meant that I didn’t have to go the military. I couldn’t stay home, though, for personal reasons. I ran away. I ran to the nearest military recruitment office and signed on as an abandoned child. I didn’t have a name, and for my story, I didn’t need one. They didn’t give me one, either. Names had become like wood, a resource not to be used lightly because there was not enough of it to go around, not since Name Regulations Act 48512 (NRA as it was called), which said, in essence, that no name could be used on two different, simultaneously living people.
After I enlisted, I was sent to the training barracks. It was Barracks Group IV, Section ZZZ Alpha, situated on an out-of-the-way planet that wasn’t likely to see any action at all ever. At least, they said it probably wouldn’t see any action. They had stressed probably, which probably meant that I was going to die and they weren’t going to care. At the time, it seemed fitting; an unnoticed life, an unnoticed death.
I was shipped off right away. They didn’t ask to see my papers, which was fortunate because I didn’t have any. That’s just one of the drawbacks of being an illegal. The trip was three thousand light-years. It took about three months. Time passes slowly on a ship going faster than light, though. There’s nothing to look at, and on my ship there was nobody I wanted to talk to. Except for one person, my roommate. His name was Al. I didn’t meet him right away. When I did meet him, though, there was a big to-do about it, at least in my mind. “Hello,” he had said. It was the first friendly word anyone besides my parents had ever spoken to me. Then again, excluding my parents and sisters, only one other person had every talked to me. “My name’s Al. Sorry I haven’t been around. Been giving orders and such.”
Al was the captain of the ship. I was an extra. He had agreed to let me sleep in his room, on the condition that I do what he wanted and stayed out of his way. It seemed like the two most often overlapped, except when he wanted to talk to me. He was an interesting fellow, so that wasn’t a very difficult task. One day, when we were almost there, he asked to speak with me.
“I know you’re not quite legal,” he said.
“Why do you think that?”
“You don’t have a name. Everyone but illegals got a name. And you ain’t got papers. Everyone but illegals got papers. Is that why you’re here?” He had known me for less than three months, and actually been in contact with me hardly more than once or twice, but he had already figured out my deepest secret. He was smart, even though he didn’t quite look it.
“So what if I’m a second? Or even a third? What does it matter? I can fight them stinking alien scum just as good as if I had a name.”
“Oh I ain’t sayin’ you can’t fight. I’m just - forget it. Just forget I said anything at all. So what was it like back at your home, or wherever you lived?”
I told him everything. The whole story about how my father had bribed the hospital to keep both his daughters then killed one of them. I told him how I had to run away to enlist. I told him my favorite meal, my nighttime routine, everything. To this day, I’m not sure why I told him, but it seemed like the right thing to do.
“You know, the army’s built on people like you,” he said. “Not necessarily illegals, though most are, but people who’re running away from something. That’s why they didn’t give you trouble ‘bout not havin’ a name or papers. They thrive off you.”
Something about the way he said that last sentence scared me. I wasn’t quite sure if he was talking about the army or the aliens. “I ain’t runnin’ from nothin’,” I said, angry that I had been seen right through, and the lights went out. “I guess it’s bedtime. Good night.” Al, already in bed (he either moved quickly or had anticipated the blackout), just grunted.
The rest of the trip was uneventful. When we arrived on the planet, there was a transport waiting to take us to the barracks. There were eleven people in that transport, including Al and me. Once we had started moving, Al stood up. “It’ll take about four hours to get to the barracks,” he said. “My name is Al. I’ll be your platoon leader and you will be my platoon. Some of you look confused; that’s understandable. You’re all new recruits, after all.” That solved one mystery, at least. “Let me be the first to welcome you to Barracks Group Eye Vee, Section Zee Zee Zee Alpha.” He pronounced each of the letters separately.
“What’s your rank?” one of my platoon-mates asked, to which Al responded that he was Acting General of the Front. Everyone in the transport was awed; it was the highest rank there was. “If you’re so important, why are you training a ragtag group of new recruits like us?” asked the same platoon-mate.
“To do that, I’d have to tell you some very confidential information. We’ll be spending a lot of time together, and I’m going to need to trust all of you, and you’ll all need to trust each other and myself. Do you all swear to never repeat what I’m about to say?” We all nodded.
“We are losing the war,” Al continued. “We’ve been losing for almost a decade, but now the human race is in very dire straits. This planet we’re on is the closest inhabited planet to Earth, and the aliens are near it. Right now a battle is being fought, and probably lost by us, on the next planet out. The battle’ll probably go on for another two or three weeks, but we will lose. There is no question about that. That makes this the final frontier.
“This planet is Earth’s last hope, and you ten were the only new recruits in time to be shipped out here and the only part of the army not fighting right now. One week from now, you will all be fully trained fighting machines. If even one of you falters even for a moment, the human race is lost.” With that last remark, the ambience of the transport changed markedly. Fear spread though the small area. Each man lowered his head, staring at the floor. Everyone was thinking the same somber though: it would be him.
There was silence until we arrived at the barracks. It was empty. Al told us to put whatever we had with us in the main room. He said we’d be sleeping, eating, and doing everything besides training in there. And with that, training started.
We first learned to use the basic laser-gun. We mastered that in an hour, even all of its nuances, like how you should always aim to the right of your target and where the heat shield begins and how long you can keep your hand unshielded while firing.
After that, with only a short lunch break, we did terrain training. We learned how to use Napalm. We learned when to get behind a rock or a tree for cover and when to run through the open and how to avoid being shot at. We learned where every rock, tree, shrub, hole, and bit of dust was on every square inch of the barracks ground. That took the rest of the day. As the lights went out, Al said, “One down. Six to go.”
The rest of the week went much like the first day, with each day rising in complexity and difficulty. We had a morning course in different weaponry, then a lunch break, then tactical training. Every night, we fell asleep immediately after dinner. Cramming years’ worth of training into a week was the most difficult thing any of us had ever done. Al, however, never seemed to tire. That’s why he’s Acting General, we all thought.
The fifth day, Al gave us a break. He let everyone sleep an extra two hours. After half an hour of extra sleep, though, he woke me. “You’re the best one I have here,” he said. “Come with me. I want to show you something.” Half asleep, I followed him to the armory room. He walked in, and scanned his palm on the sensor, the input a code. A door I wasn’t even aware had existed opened. He led me through and pointed to the far wall.
“That,” he said, “is a Plasmatech bomb. “It sends out a special type of energy that vibrates plasma in the blood so hard that the blood literally explodes outward through the skin. It’ll kill every living thing within five feet. The problem is that you have to be right there to activate it, so it’s a suicide bomb. Take it. Once we’ve lost the battle, run into the biggest group of aliens you can find and detonate. You just push that red button.” The button was impossible to miss, even though it was covered with a plastic shield that had to be lifted in order to press it. There were two bombs there. He gave one to me and put the other in his pocket.
After giving me the bomb, which fit neatly in my pocket, we went back to the room. I went back to sleep. I didn’t see where Al went. An hour later, we woke up. “Today is the last lesson,” Al said. “After this, we go out in the field and scout out the best location to do battle. But today, we learn how to distinguish the scum from ourselves. Does anyone know what the aliens look like?” Everyone stared blankly. It was embarrassing to be fighting a war and not know just what you were fighting against.
After a while, Al said, “They look just like us, but they’re a hive mind so they all look a little dumb ‘cuz they can’t think for themselves. We think the queen or king or whatever there is controlling them’ll look even closer to us than a normal one of ‘em would. That’s the biggest problem, their looks. They all may as well be one thing, so they can tell all of us from themselves, but we have a tough time seein’ what’s them and what’s us.” He brought a picture out of his pocket. It looked like a normal human. “That’s one of ‘em. The easiest way to fight ‘em is to remember what all of you look like and shoot anything that isn’t you or me. Lesson over. Grab your guns and let’s go out.”
We went out and heard the loudest sound I’d ever heard. It was ear-bleedingly loud, but there was no mistaking that it was alien ships. “Take cover!” shouted Al. “Don’t shoot ‘til you can see ‘em. Don’t give away your position until you shoot!” With those words, we all scattered. I ran to the nearest hole, and Al followed. I didn’t notice until we were both below ground, periodically sticking our heads up for a second to take stock of what was happening.
There was a scream outside. I guessed one of us was just killed. The look on Al’s face told me I was right. I pushed my head up for a second, and saw that at least a thousand of those scum were marching towards the hole. “They’re coming!” I shouted to Al.
“I know,” he said. At that moment, he looked dumber than he ever had before. He smiled. It was the smile of a man who knows he’s going to kill an animal he’s been hunting. I reached into my pocket, and flicked the plastic case open while I brought out the Plasmatech bomb. “Put it down,” Al said. “You’ll kill yourself if you push down.” My hand was resting on top of the button. Al’s pistol was pointing at my head.
“If you shoot me, my hand’ll fall on this button.”
“You don’t want to die, do you?”
“You said it yourself. I’m already dead. I’m an illegal, and I’m a human. You’re not dead yet, though, are you? You’re the king. If I kill you, we win, don’t we.” It wasn’t a question.
“You are the best one I had. A pity you have to go like this,” he said as he shot, aiming straight at my face.
Time stood still. I saw the beam coming at me, but I couldn’t move away. I could just stand there, as the bright light seared my retinas, and then, in the last moment that I could see, exploded into the dirt to my left.
“Rule number one,” I said. “Always aim to the right.” I pushed my hand down as hard as I could. I felt a lot of pinpricks, all over my body, like needles were being shoved into my skin in every possible place. I heard Al screaming in pain, and with him every alien on the planet, and in the universe.
The other eight men survived. Three of them had been wounded, but only one wound was serious. Two hadn’t even fired a single shot. They regrouped and searched for survivors. They found all of the aliens’ corpses around the hole, and mine and Al’s bodies, barely recognizable, inside. The walls dirt walls of the hole ran red with my blood and blue with his. The survivors immediately went back to the barracks and got on the faster-than-light radio to Earth. They told them everything that had happened, and back at Earth they figured that the hive-mind had infiltrated their military. He had probably been giving them military secrets, tactics, and technology, and that was why they were losing.
Rumors soon spread of an unnamed hero wining the war and saving the human race, but probably no one knew who it was.