She looks at me like I’m a moron until she realizes I’m being serious. Then she sobers, steps away from me, thinks it over, and nods. “I can do that.”
Not exactly the words you want to hear from your best friend/possible future wife with whom you’ll sire the backbone of a future intergalactic insurgency. No pressure. But if I go rabid and need to be put down, there’s no one I trust more to take me behind the proverbial barn and put me down.
“You’re alive!” Hildy is in the doorway, beaming. Her curls are chaotic. Her face dirty. But she’s joy personified. And like Chuy, she doesn’t stop to think about my condition before throwing her arms around me.
Doesn’t hurt as bad this time. I’m either feeling better, or Hildy simply can’t generate the PSI Chuy did. I squeeze back. “Glad you’re okay, kid.”
“Sorry I didn’t—”
“Nothing that happened here was your fault,” I tell her.
Behind her, Burnett lingers in the doorway, looking at the floor. His eyes are red-rimmed and swollen. Bottom lip quivering.
I’m broken up about Morton and Porter. Going to be haunted by their deaths for the rest of my life. But Burnett was with them from childhood, when they were segregated from their better-looking counterparts and predestined for salvaging jobs far from the Union’s eyes.
Hildy glances back, sees Burnett, and then whispers. “He saved my life.”
I step around Hildy and stand in front of Burnett. “The weight of what happened here today is not yours to carry.”
No response.
“I put you all in harm’s way. I trusted the wrong person. Porter and Morton…that’s on me and no one else. You hearing me?”
A slight nod is all I get.
“Hildy says you saved her,” I say.
He sniffs back some tears. “I was a coward. I hid.”
“Some of the bravest people in human history have done nothing more than hide, and keep others hidden.”
“I could have done something,” he says. “I could have tried.”
I understand how he’s feeling, but he’s not me. “Carter, and the man who was with her…”
“It was your friend,” he says. “Whip. He—he told us that you sent him. That y-you wanted him to—”
“I would never,” I say, voice choking with anguish and rage.
“I know,” he says. “We all know.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. My forehead against his. “There is nothing you could have done to stop them. What happened was my fault, and I’m going to make it right.”
His forehead rubs against mine when he nods.
Now the hard part. “But I’m going to need your help to do it. After that, if you want out, you can—”
“No.” He stands up, looking pissed. “I want to fight. Whatever it takes. I’m with you until the end, no matter how far we have to go, or how dangerous the mission, even if that means dying.”
“Well, shit. Wow.” I say, genuinely impressed by his zeal.
“We watched some action movies,” Hildy says. “Before Carter…you know… Thinks he’s John McClane now.”
Burnett huffs an embarrassed laugh.
“I like it.” I squeeze Burnett’s shoulder. “It fits.”
He sniffs back his emotions. Stands a little taller. “What do we need to do?”
“Step One,” I say. “You three get to the bridge. Make sure they didn’t mess around with Bitch’n. Then we’re going to teach the Union what happens when you screw with Exo-Hunters.”
“Toughest of the tough,” Chuy says, and we thump our fists together. She offers her raised fist to Burnett, who is momentarily taken aback.
Then he smiles. “Toughest of the tough.” He thumps his fist against Chuy’s and winces in pain.
“Fuckin-A,” Hildy says, and bumps her fist against Chuy’s.
Had the words come from anyone else, they wouldn’t have had much effect, but coming from a pint-sized blonde with pom-pom hair, it strikes a chord and gets me smiling.
“Fuckin-A.”
Then she spoils it by asking, “What are you going to do?”
A sigh sneaks out. Then I say, “Going to take care of our friends.”
“If you’re ejecting them…” Burnett says, but doesn’t get to finish.
“They’ll get a proper burial,” I tell him. “Someplace nice. They deserve it. Now go.”
Before they can leave, I activate the slew and rotate back to the hangar bay. It’s exactly as I left it, except that the bomb is gone. Porter and Morton have slumped over, their bodies not yet claimed by rigor mortis.
When my emotions swell again, I choke them down, strangling them into submission. I can weep for the fallen when the enemy is defeated. It takes ten minutes to wrap the bodies in tarps. Then I rotate them, one at a time, to the freezer. Feels weird leaving them here. My instinct is to pull them out of the frigid air, but there’s nothing I can do to ease their suffering or save their lives.
All that’s left is vengeance.
I close the freezer and rotate back to the bridge, shifting as I go, so that when I appear, I’m seated in my chair.
“That’s a new trick,” Chuy says.
Rotating feels different now. I have a better sense of where I’m going. Where I’ll wind up. And I’m pretty sure that has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the Europhids in my cranium. Unlike me, they have a perfect memory—of their experiences…and mine. Access to that lets me pinpoint where I’m going. If I’ve been there before. Or they have.
“Any contacts?” I ask.
“Not a one,” Chuy says.
“Won’t be long,” I say.
Burnett swivels around. “What are we looking for?”
“Just the entire Union fleet,” I say. “It’ll be hard to miss.”
“The entire…” He swivels forward, eyes wide. Looks at Hildy. “Holy shit.”
“I know, right?” There’s a flicker of a smile between them, which gives me hope for Burnett. Morton and Porter never had significant others, but they talked about it a lot. They had hope for the future. Burnett seemed happy to reserve his affection for an anime body pillow salvaged from Earth. Creeped the hell out of me, but maybe the pillow will become a thing of the past.
If we survive.
“Drago,” I say. “How are things going down there?”
“Big Brick man says the Minutemen are ready when you are,” he replies. “How are things up there?”
“Been better,” I tell him, not wanting to repeat the news. “Ready to come back?”
“Da,” he says, and I’m a little surprised. I thought his reunion with Adrik might trigger his departure from Bitch’n’s crew. That he’s coming back means he is allied with us, and not his Soviet roots, no matter how much he pines for the good ol’ Soviet days. And I’m glad for it. He’s an irreplaceable pain in the dick. With Morton and Porter gone, Chuy’s going to need him to operate Bitch’n when the shit hits the slew drive.
“Be right back,” I say, and I rotate to the Minutemen subterranean hangar. Guided by the Europhids’ knowledge of where every person on the planet is, I appear in what must be a flagship’s bridge. It’s a large space. Every station filled. There’s a buzz in the air.
Drago is at the room’s core, along with Brick, Will, Adrik, and BigApe.
I’m about to announce myself when Chuy’s voice emerges from my comms. “Might want to make it snappy, pendejo. We got company.” A moment later, an alarm blares.
It’s time.
43
“Someone shut that damn alarm off,” Brick shouts, and a moment later, the klaxon is silenced. “Now, has anyone heard from Dark Horse?”
“Is on way,” Drago says, and then he sees me. Points. “Is here now.”
Brick turns to me, his face a mixture of concern and determination. I’ve seen the same look on his face before dozens of missions. “Well, you got your wish. The entire Union fleet is here. The planet is surrounded, and rightly fucked. This all
part of the grand plan?”
“Afraid so,” I tell him. “I’m just the messenger, remember? You have a problem, you can take it up with the cucumbers.”
His smile cuts the tension. “I’d rather not.”
“Are your people ready to rotate?” I ask.
He nods. “You’re sure about this?”
“Hell, no. Everything about it is nutso.”
“That’s probably why it will work,” he says.
“Wait for them to get boots on the ground. Like all the boots. Then rotate the hell out of here and do what needs doing.”
He shakes his head. “An army of millions to attack a planet of billions.”
“Most of them don’t know how to do more than look at a computer screen. Get the job done and the fleet won’t be able to find their way back. Then you can rotate away, safe in the knowledge that the Union will eat itself alive long before they find you again.”
“Part of me wants to bomb them into oblivion,” he admits. “But the more I think about it, the more I realize that the best revenge is to let them destroy themselves.”
“Or not,” I admit. “The new colonies might pull through. But they’ll have to do it on their own, cut off from the Union’s support, and knowledge. But they won’t be a threat to you, or the Europhids. And you…won’t be a threat to them.”
Brick’s brow furrows. “How’s that?”
“Final request from our friends, downstairs,” I say. “When the Minutemen return to Earth, you need to erase your celestial data as well. You can keep the slews. The fleet. Use it to start over. Mine the solar system for resources. But leave the rest of the universe—and Europa—alone.”
He thinks on it for a moment and nods. If he didn’t mean it, the Europhids would know. I take their lack of reaction in my mind as confirmation that he’s being sincere. “I don’t like it, but I get it.”
“Good,” I say, and then I turn to Drago. “Time to go.”
He nods and steps closer.
I turn to Will. “Keep your old man out of trouble. And thank you.”
“For what?” Will asks.
“For doing the family proud. My parents would have liked you.”
His smile is contagious. “Really?”
“Really.” I offer my hand. He hugs me instead.
“Okay,” I say, patting his back. “About to go to war. Let’s try to keep it manly.”
He laughs and steps back. Tears in his eyes. Definitely my kin. The military isn’t fond of men who cry, but fuck that. Better than bottling it all up, cracking from the pressure, and committing some kind of atrocity.
When I turn back to Brick, he looks concerned. “This doesn’t sound like ‘See you later.’”
“It’s not,” I say. “Europhids have a different plan for me.”
“You won’t be fighting with us?” He’s surprised.
“I will,” I say. “Just not in the same place.”
“The hell does that mean?” he asks.
“Means they told me not to say.” I don’t like keeping secrets from Brick. Doesn’t feel right. But the Europhids have their reasons. There’s no way to know how Brick would react to the truth, and its potential ramifications.
“Also means you won’t be coming back,” he points out.
“Probably not,” I admit.
He sighs. “Can’t say I’m going to miss those little assholes.”
“They can hear you, you know,” I say.
“Damn right, I know.” He wraps me in his meaty arms, smacking my back with his oven-mitt-sized hand. “It was good to see you again, old friend.”
“Same,” I say, and then I turn to BigApe, who is still a fright. “Ape… I’d shake your hand, but…”
He laughs. Hard. Shaking Adrik’s belly. After slowing down, he says. “No need. We’re coming.”
“You’re coming? With us?” Drago asks Adrik, unable to conceal his excitement.
“Da,” Adrik says. “We desire to stand alongside our old comrades again.” Then to me he adds, “If you approve, of course.”
Looks like I’m going to have to get used to BigApe’s sorry condition after all. “As long as it’s okay with—”
“I would never ask someone to be where they didn’t want to be.”
Brick shakes Adrik’s hand. “Good luck. Both of you.”
“Right then,” I say, and I clear my throat, choking back my rising emotions. Never thought I’d have to leave Brick behind after finding him. Never thought a crew member would have a second face on his chest, either. “Time to go. Remember, all the boots on the ground. Then go.”
I put an arm around Drago, and I tell Adrik to hold on. When we’re huddled up, I say, “Chuy, incoming.” And then to Brick, I say, “Proud of you.”
“Likewise,” he says, and then I rotate away before I become a blubbering mess.
We appear on Bitch’n’s bridge. Burnett spins around. “Sir, the Union fleet has arrived.”
“I’m aware,” I tell him, heading for my seat. Drago makes a beeline for his station. “You can take one of the empty seats,” I tell Adrik and BigApe.
“But sir, they’re…” His eyes drift to Adrik, and then his open shirt. “…coming…right… Oh my God, what the hell is that?!”
His high-pitched shout turns Hildy around. When she sees BigApe, her reaction is different. She smiles wide, excited to the core. “Holy Kuato! You have a face in your chest!”
“Name’s BigApe,” he says, not taking offense to Burnett’s and Hildy’s opposite reactions. “The guy whose body I’m fused to is Adrik.”
“Privet,” Adrik says, with a wave, sitting down in what once was Porter’s spot. He notices my consternation. “Is okay to sit?”
I nod, and I force myself to move on. I turn to Hildy. “First. What the hell is Kuato?”
“Movie reference. Total Recall. Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. A year after your time. Kuato was a little baby dude fused to the body of a grown man, but with arms. Totally gnarly.” To BigApe she says, “Sorry.”
“Sweet,” I say, “We’ll watch it later.” Then I turn to Chuy. “Give me a sitrep.”
“As Burn was trying to tell you,” she says, “before his testicles ascended, the Union fleet is here.”
“Annnd?” I ask.
“They’re headed our way.”
“How many?”
“Ten ships,” she says.
“And the rest?”
“Headed to the surface,” Burnett says. “Looks like a mass invasion.”
“Good,” I say.
“How, exactly, is that good?” Hildy asks. “These guys are killers. Anyone down there doesn’t stand a chance.”
“Feigned weakness, and a whole lot of deception,” I say. “Back in 1066 a guy named William the Conqueror invaded England. In what became known as the Battle of Hastings, old William feigned—”
“Dark Horse,” Chuy says, interrupting my history lesson. “Bad guys incoming. ETA, one mike.”
“Right. Sorry.” I focus up. Not a lot of time. “Drago, Chuy, I need you here. Keep those ten ships busy. Blow them out of orbit if you can. But if things get dicey, use the slew and evade.”
I slide my keyboard into place and start tapping keys. I’m normally a hunt-and-peck typist, but I’m not controlling my fingers at the moment. “Burnett, this was meant for Porter. I’m hoping you can fill his shoes.”
“Oh… I don’t know about that. He was the engineer. I just—”
“I am engineer,” Adrik says.
“Ever worked on a slew drive?” I ask.
“All the time,” he says.
“Okay, then, Burn and Adrik, I want you to make these changes to the slew…” I turn to Chuy, “preferably before you start bouncing around the planet.” She nods, and I hit Enter, sending the information to Burn’s and Adrik’s consoles.
Adrik studies it for a moment. “I do not understand. What is this supposed to do?”
“Just get it done,” I say. “It’s time fo
r me to go.”
“Where the hell are you going?” Chuy asks.
“Back down,” I say.
“Why?” Her stare demands my answer be good.
“To oversee the counterattack,” I say. “And to make sure Whip and Carter don’t survive.”
I think she’s about to argue against it, but she says, “Don’t forget a gun this time.”
I smile at her and say, “This time, I won’t need one.” Then I rotate back to the surface, not far from where I first encountered Whip and Carter. As predicted, a large number of Union vessels are coming my way. Leading the way is the Zorak.
44
The jungle rumbles as hundreds of Union ships touch down, toppling trees, chasing away wildlife, and destroying everything they touch. It’s just a taste of what is to come if this all goes sideways.
A strange urge to attack roils inside me, but not from me.
“Not yet,” I say, speaking to the red Europhids I can sense all around, coiling through the earth like roots.
WHY?
The question is primal. Agitated. Eager. And from a mind that is not my own. The red Europhids might be all instinct, but they’re not unintelligent.
“If they’re still in the ships, they can rotate away,” I say. “If they do that, we’re screwed. All of us. We’re going to wait until it’s impossible for them to retreat.”
I take their silence as begrudging agreement.
Feels weird to be speaking to an alien species over whom I have authority because some of them are living in my brain.
“So,” I say. “We can talk now, huh?”
No response.
“What’s it like?” I ask. “Being immense…and small at the same time.”
QUIET.
“C’mon,” I say. “We’re brothers-in-arms now. I’m just joshing. This is how humans bond before battle.”
EXPLAIN.
“I’ve got your back. You’ve got mine. We’re brothers-in-arms. Like family. At least during the battle. You can go back to hating everyone when we’re done, but for now, I’m one of you, and you’re one of us. Get it?”
Exo-Hunter Page 27
