by Bobby Adair
“This took a long time to arrange,” argues Blair. “You don’t know how regimented the MSS is.”
“And neither do you,” says Brice. “You know how things were under the old regime. Maybe the rules are different now.”
Blair turns to me. “Are we running away, or are we going to act like real soldiers?”
“How many of them are there?” I ask Phil, though I didn’t forget. I’m stalling while I decide.
“Six,” he confirms.
“Armed?” I ask.
He says, “I can’t tell from here.”
“Alright, Blair,” I say. “I hope you can handle a railgun. We’re going out to meet these guys. All of us.”
“We’re going to kill them?” she asks, not bothered by the idea. She just wants clarification.
“We’re going to ambush them,” guesses Brice.
To Chikere, I say, “You broadcast that signal to Blair’s contact as frequently as you think necessary. If you get a response, ping us immediately, and we'll send Blair back.”
To Phil, Chikere says, “Keep an eye out there for bad guys. I don’t want to get stuck here with my pants down.”
“Don’t go soft on me,” I tell him.
Chapter 5
We fly out of the crater using suit grav, but once we're on the surface, we put our feet on the ground and split up. A handful of orange-suits flying over the surface of a derelict battle station shouldn't be enough to attract any kind of attention, but the grav pulses would be a detection risk with little payoff. The work crew isn't that far away.
I keep Phil and Nicky with me. Brice takes Blair and flanks to our right. “Go wide,” I tell them. “I don’t want the crew to spot you.”
“Yes Mother,” says Brice as he skips toward the asteroid’s horizon.
Phil and I start to walk. “Are they still coming this way?”
“Yes,” says Phil. “Do you think it’s a good idea for us to expose ourselves?”
“I didn’t think you’d be up for just killing them.”
“I’m not,” he says. “But we have to protect the mission.”
“This is worth the risk.”
“Why?”
“Can’t you just sneak in and read my thoughts about it?” I ask.
“You’ve gotten pretty good at walling everything off from us.”
“You mean I have my privacy back?” I ask, but I don’t believe him. “Are you telling me a story so I'll think my thoughts are more private than they are?”
“What do you think?” he asks.
“I just told you what I think.”
“I already answered your question," sighs Phil. "You're going to believe whatever you want to believe, so it doesn't matter what I tell you.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Then why are we talking about this?” asks Phil. “Why don’t you just tell me?”
“This whole idea of us inspiring the people of earth to take up arms in a revolt,” I say, “how do we know if any humans are left who have any fight in them?”
“So what?” asks Phil. “You’re just going to ask these guys?”
I shrug. “I figured I could, and then have you and Nicky tell me if they’re telling the truth.”
“And what?” he asks, “They’re going to be the representative sample in your survey of earth’s willingness to revolt?”
“When you’re dismissive like that, Phil, it makes other people feel bad.”
“You mean when I don’t agree with your dubious plan it makes you feel bad.”
“We need to start somewhere,” I argue. “We can’t exactly poll the populace.”
“We should leave this to Blair. It’s one of the things she’s going to earth to find out—how willing the people are to take up arms against the Trogs and Grays.”
“I don’t trust her.”
“Yet,” says Phil, “here we are, risking our lives—not to mention our last stealth scout—to rendezvous with her MSS contact so she can go to earth to get our answers and set our plans in motion.”
I shrug.
“If you don’t trust her, what good is any of it?”
“We’ll see,” I tell him. “Asking these fellows up here what they think won’t hurt anything.”
“And if they call back to their MSS bosses?” asks Phil. “What then?”
“We kill ‘em.”
“Regular people out doing their jobs,” says Phil.
“Phil, why are you being so argumentative?”
“This feels like a bad idea.”
“They were coming toward the ship, right? You told us that, right?”
“They might have veered off in another direction.”
“But they haven’t yet, have they?”
“No.”
“Then stop pretending like we have a choice in this. I’m just trying to salvage something positive out of this, rather than killing them outright for nothing but our security.”
“We’d be better served spending our time hiding and trying to figure out how we’re going to make this whole revolution thing work.”
I sigh. Phil can be so tiring when he gets into one of his contrary moods. I open a comm to Brice and Blair. “You see them yet?”
“Just got started,” says Brice. “We need a few minutes.”
“Keep me posted.”
“Will do, chief.”
“I could have told you that,” says Phil.
“I know. Can you tell yet if any of them are armed? Is this a work crew or a security detail?”
“Not sure yet.”
“Concentrate on it, okay?”
“Why are you in a bitchy mood?”
“Jesus, Phil.” I draw a long breath and think of a way to steer the conversation to anything but this pointless yammering. “The problem comes down to something that seems like it should be simple, right?”
“What’s that?”
“How do you exterminate six thousand Grays?” I ask. “They aren’t physically formidable. They can’t run away from you. They’re pretty easy to kill once you get your hands on them. You just stomp on ‘em a little bit. That orange goo spews out, and they die."
“We could do without the graphic imagery,” says Phil.
“There’s got to be a way. Let’s call it seventy thousand Trogs and what, still another three or four billion humans on the planet?”
“They conquered us with only eighteen Grays, if you remember right.”
“Of course, I know that. Everybody does, but things were different then. The Grays had the advantage of controlling outer space. Humans only had a handful of chemical-powered rockets back in those days. We were technically outclassed. But not anymore. We have the technological advantage.”
“But we still lost,” says Phil.
“Why?”
“They had more ships?”
“They had the production advantage,” I suggest. “That advantage has won more than one war on earth.”
“Sometimes that’s enough.”
“I guess any one advantage can be enough. But still.”
"Right now they have all the advantages," says Phil. "The Trogs and their Gray masters have a fleet of star cruisers. They control the moon base. They control the major bases in the asteroid belt. They control the battle stations orbiting the earth. They've started building a fleet of Arizona Class ships. And they control earth through the MSS, and that means they control all of earth's resources and production capacity. And what do we have? One semi-modified Arizona Class ship, a stealth scout, the remnants of an intel gathering system and a few freighters. Oh, and one MSS double-agent who might be killed the moment she makes her way down to the surface. Without the people of earth in the equation, we don’t even outnumber the Grays.” Phil laughs bitterly. “Remind me why I agreed to stay here and fight again?”
“There’s something we’re not seeing here,” I tell him. “There has to be somethi
ng we can turn to our advantage.”
“And not get ourselves killed or the population of earth annihilated.”
“Yes,” I agree. “I’m with you on both counts.”
Brice comms in. “We have a visual.”
“Are they aware of your presence?” I ask.
Brice snorts. “Blair’s a handicap, but this isn’t my first rodeo. We’re on their left flank, a little to the rear.”
I turn to Phil.
He nods toward a rocky mound rising in front of us. “We’ll be able to see them from the top. And they’ll be able to see us.”
I tell Brice, “We’ll be in position in about a minute.”
Chapter 6
“We should kill them all,” says Blair over the comm.
“No,” I tell her. “Brice, make sure she doesn’t fire.”
“You want me to take her gun away?” he asks. “It’s not like I have another way to do it. Unless you want me to shoot her.”
Don’t, Phil tells me telepathically.
I roll my eyes, and press the authority of my command. “Blair, you’ll do what you’re told. Don’t fire unless Brice does. That’s an order.”
“You’re going to jeopardize this mission and get me killed. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“Worse things have happened.” I cut her outgoing comm. “Brice. Keep an eye on her.”
“You shouldn’t treat her that way,” says Phil.
“I know.” Sometimes a platitude is all I have.
Luckily, Phil doesn’t have a chance to call me out on it. We reach the crest of the rocky mound and see the six workers. They’re spread out, and just as Brice guessed, they’re planting seismic charges. His years of experience from working space construction comes in handy at the most unexpected times.
It takes only a moment for one of the workers to notice us. Once that happens, the other five stop what they’re doing and look up. Alerts bounce across their comm link.
“I have open shots at all of them,” Brice says, to remind me of the action we should be taking. “Even Blair could hit one or two from here.”
I broadcast a message across all channels, and give the workers one to tune in on so we can talk. Nicky standing between Phil and me conveys all the authority I need for them to obey.
“I hope no one else is in range,” says Brice.
Ignoring him, I further instruct the workers to come to the foot of the mound on which Phil and I are standing.
Without the ability to commandeer their radio signals, I don’t know what they’re saying to each other, so I turn to Phil. “Can you read them now?”
“They’re alarmed,” he says.
“Are any of them trying to contact anyone?” I ask.
“The second from the left,” he says. “He can’t connect, though. Too much rock between us and his ship.”
“Is he in charge of the crew?”
“No,” says Phil. “On the far right. That woman is the foreman.”
“He’s not talking to her?”
“The others are,” says Phil. “She’s telling them this is no big deal, and to do what they’re told. They think we’re MSS inspectors or something.”
“What’s the guy saying—the one who’s trying to make the call?”
“He’s suspicious.”
I fiddle with my d-pad to scan all frequencies so I can listen in. I’m not finding the guy’s broadcast frequency. “Brice,” I ask, “do construction crews use encrypted communication or nonstandard bands?”
“Nope.”
“Blair,” I ask, “does the MSS?” I turn her outgoing comm back on.
“Now you want to let me back in on the conversation?”
“Blair, just answer the question.”
“Yes,” she says. “They use frequencies other than the standard bands.”
“So this guy’s communicating on an MSS band?” I ask.
“I could have told you that,” says Brice.
“It doesn’t make sense,” says Phil. “He can’t know we’re anything out of the ordinary yet.”
“Except that we’re here,” I say, “where we’re not supposed to be. The new Trogs in charge just murdered every Gray in the solar system that wasn’t one of theirs. I’ll bet the MSS has standing orders to keep their noses to the ground for any Grays that might have slipped through.”
“And the MSS likes to plant their snitches where you least expect them,” says Brice. “Back when I was working construction, we had a way of dealing with the ones we discovered.”
“We do, too,” I say. “Second one from my left. Take care of him.”
Phil starts to say something, but a handful of red-hot railgun rounds tear into the guy’s back and explode out of his chest, nearly ripping him in half.
Workers scream over the comm. One dives for cover. Two launch themselves off the surface, maxing suit grav to escape.
“Stop!” I command. “Don’t make us kill you.”
“Why’d you do that?” shouts the leader, still on her feet and standing defiant.
Pointing at the two flyers, I tell her, “Order your people back down here. I won’t ask again.”
A moment passes and everything settles down. The runners on the ground stop trying to escape. Those in the air reverse their paths and head back toward us.
“Here,” I tell the leader, pointing at the foot of the rock mound, “The rest of you, I want you here in thirty seconds.”
“Blair,” I ask. “The comm units on the snitches’ suits, do they have extended range as well as extra bands?”
“Yes,” she tells me. “Of course they do.”
“How much more range?”
“Double or triple, depending on conditions.” She sounds happy that I didn’t ask this first.
“You think the snitch’s message got out?” asks Phil.
She says, “You said he didn’t get an answer.”
“That doesn’t mean somebody didn’t hear what he was sending,” says Phil.
Yes, of course he’s right, but sometimes, ugh. I say, “You and Nicky keep on the lookout for incoming ships. We may need to move out of here in a hurry.”
“What’s this about?” asks the leader of the work crew, as she glances at the carcass of the suspected MSS man, slowly floating away into space. “Why did you have to kill Geeslin?”
I read the name stenciled on her chest. “You don’t get to ask questions, Parker.”
The rest of her crew comes into line at the foot of the hill, each taking glances behind them. They know generally where Brice’s shots came from.
“What now?” asks Blair.
“Yeah?” asks Phil.
Chapter 7
I call Parker to the top of the hill to separate her from her crew.
She looks back to the others, deciding what to do, but realizes she has no good option. With grav set pretty heavy on her boots, she starts to trudge up the slope. She’s a tall woman. Old, but not ruined by her years. She carries herself like she might take a risk and punch me in the face when she gets the chance. At a few paces in front of me, she comes to a stop. She says nothing, but her eyes settle on the disruptor handle sticking up above my shoulder. I can tell she’s starting to deduce an explanation for it being there, and she’s not comfortable with what she comes up with.
“Phil,” I say, “you can read her, right?”
“Yes,” he tells me. “She’s frightened.”
"Not unexpected." To Parker, I say, "I'm not going to monkey around with this, so here it is. We're not MSS, and we're not SDF."
“There is no more SDF,” says the woman. “The ones who weren’t killed in the war were put on the work crews and marked,” she shows me what looks like a long white brush stroke painted down her left arm from shoulder to wrist. “That way the Trogs know if we cause any trouble they should cut our heads off straight away.”
“You were SDF?” I ask, as though that w
asn’t obvious.
“Wasn’t everybody?”
Of course, everybody wasn't. I say, “We’re not with the invaders.”
She looks bored. “I thought you weren’t going to monkey around. Why don’t you just tell me who you are and what you want?”
“She has you there,” says Phil.
“I didn’t want to tell her,” I say, “in case she’s interrogated at some point and tells her captors who we are.”
“If you’re going to have a revolution,” says Phil, “you can’t do it with people you keep in the dark.”
Damn, sometimes Phil being right about things frustrates the hell out of me. Turning back to Parker, I tell her, “We’re Free Army.”
“I thought the Free Army was wiped out.”
“We’re still here. We’re still fighting.”
“Fighting?” she asks. “By shooting innocent construction workers in the back. You know, he had a mother and father back on earth. What are they suppose to think when they find out, huh? The Free Army, or whatever you really are, is just as bad as the Trogs and the old Grays and the new Grays and the MSS. Everybody in the universe is an asshole, just like you.”
“She’s got a lot of frustrations,” says Phil.
“Oh really?” I ask. “Is that what you and Nicky figured out with your mongo-psycho, mind-reader powers?”
“Sarcasm doesn’t do anybody any good,” says Phil.
“I find it cathartic,” I say.
Phil scans the dark sky with its million bits of rock and wreckage glistening in the sun. "Why don't you ask her what you want to ask her and let's get on with this before we run out of time?"
“We killed your man,” I tell Parker, “because he was an MSS snitch.”
“So what?” she asks. “That’s what the Free Army is doing now? Sneaking around construction sites assassinating snitches?”
“No,” I tell her. “We’re here for another purpose. Your crew wasn’t supposed to be here.”
“What?” she asks. “You thought you’d come to a battle station in near-earth orbit and not expect to find anybody here?” And then she has an epiphany. “Oh my god, don’t tell me this is your secret base. Please don’t tell me the hope of all mankind is buried in a crumbling rock a hundred kilometers above the atmosphere.”
