Three weeks later Khalid was going over soil samples and being dismayed at how soft the ground was just 5 kilometers ahead of where the construction was currently taking place. He realized that they were going to have to drive very deep piles to support the railroad. The door buzzed and when Khalid opened it he ushered in Yusef. Yusef wasn’t alone; one of the company’s doctors was with him.
“Have you met Dr. Toshiyukie, Khalid?” asked Yusef.
“I haven’t had the honor”, said Khalid standing up and shaking hands with the doctor. The doctor was a middle-aged Japanese national, tall with graying hair and a firm handshake.
“It is very nice to meet the newest member of the Martian resistance,” said Dr. Toshiyukie.
Khalid looked at Yusef with Alarm. “Well um ahh”, he muttered.
“It’s alright the doctor is on our side”, said yusef with a sly smile, “he has been helping us by signing fake death certificates, so that some of the resistance has been able to get out of the system and set up some bases in the hills. He has also helped us secure some medical equipment and medicines. Which brings me to my next point, I need you to get a list of supplies and where they are being stored and maybe things you think we could order. Also later I have some other friends I would like you to meet.”
“Doctor do you mind if I ask you why someone who is Japanese would join the resistance?” asked Khalid.
Dr. Toshiyukie looked at khalid with out saying a word for what seemed to be an eternity and then spoke.
“When ever your workers are injured so badly they can no longer work what happens to them?”
“I am supposed to fill out a Medical discharge form and they go back”
“Back where?”
“Back to Earth”
“You actually believe that the Imperial government pays for their passage back to earth?”
“Oh God, what do they…”
“They are sent back to Kyoto on Mars and are turned into fertilizer.”
“Yes I understand”
Later that night Khalid put on his Mars Suit and went outside. He went to the vehicle storage center and then using his Mars Compass; really an electronic device which received signals from Satellites in orbit, and walked due north for a kilometer.
Khalid was taken by surprise when two men stood up tossing off the camouflage blankets that they had been hiding under. Both men had what appeared to Khalid as some sort of crossbow, neither of the men spoke a word but motioned for him to follow them. He walked, one man leading and the other man behind him, for about a kilometer before they stopped and opened a camouflage door in a crater wall. Khalid realized that he would not have found the door if he had spent a month looking for it. Still not speaking one of the men nudge him towards the doorway and as the one person present who did not have a weapon Khalid felt it prudent to go through the door.
After cycling through the airlock that the small hidden door had led to, he found himself in a 10 meters by 20 meters room with a floor sloping down and two corridors leading off of it. There were several tables and chairs in the room, as well as boxes piled all along the walls. There were about twenty people in the room all looking at him. This made Khalid extremely uncomfortable and so he squeaked out, “ Assalam Alaikum”
“Alaikum Asalam” the group replied in unison.
While Khalid thought that this reply should make him feel more comfortable, it actually freaked him out a little.
The meeting got under way. What became apparent to Khalid very quickly was that the resistance had been in existence for quite sometime and that they had built small hidden camps all over Mars. Now they were ready to go from stealing equipment and subtle sabotage to open rebellion. It was also apparent that how this was to happen had still not been decided.
There was a group of three men, included Daniel, one of the Phillapinos at the meeting, who wanted to simply take what they needed and vanish into the Martian wilderness.
Hamza Kahir, a broad shouldered Indonesian with a frightening intensity in his eyes, wanted Khalid wanted to help them steal explosives and using bombs and suicide bombers, terrorize the Japanese into leaving Mars. Hamza was a former Indonesian army commando and an expert in Silat. He already had a company of men trained, and Khalid discovered later that the men whom he had encountered earlier had been trained by Hamza.
The other group was led by Mahathir Abdullah and Mohammed Hatta. Mahathir was a Malay, trained to be an Imam in the Brotherhood of the golden circle, a soft-spoken man who spoke with authority. Mohammed was a very energetic engineer from Acheh Indonesia who got more and more excited as he spoke. They advocated a more traditional guerrilla war escalating into a conventional war.
Mahathir said,” This should be put to a vote. But before we put this to a vote, I would like to remind my Muslim brothers that the Quran and Hadith have given us rules of war that we must follow.
"Do not kill any old person, any child or any woman" (AbuDawood).
"Do not kill the monks in monasteries" and "Do not kill the people who are sitting in places of worship" (Musnad of Ibn Hanbal).
"Do not attack a wounded person" said the Prophet. This means that wounded soldiers who are not fit to fight, nor actually fighting, should not be attacked.
"The Prophet has prohibited us from mutilating the corpses of the enemies" (Bukhari, AbuDawood).
"Fight in the cause of God against those who fight you, but do not transgress limits. God does not love transgressors." Qur'an 2:190
"If anyone killed a person - unless it was for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he killed the whole people"Qur'an 5:32
“I also remind you that in Islam there are no Japanese children , all children are born Muslim and if one should be killed that there will be justice for that child.”
When the vote was taken 4 voted to simply run away into the Martian wilderness, 3 voted for Kahir’s plan and 16 voted for the plan put forth by Mohammed Hatta.
No comments:
Post a Comment