Peace Army

by Steven L. Hawk

  Even more fun than chess, but he wouldn’t tell Treel that. He knew the booger liked it when they played. Not that Eli didn’t like it—it just wasn’t as much fun as blading.

  Maybe he’d ask Uncle Tane to get Treel some roller blades. Now that was a funny thought.

  A big green booger racing down the corridors of the Second Square. Man, the orphans and the pedestrians would really pee themselves over that!

  “Ha!”

  Eli told himself to remember to ask Uncle Tane about it the next time he saw him. They would have to be big roller blades, though. Boogers had humongous—Dad’s word—feet.

  Eli rolled quickly, but carefully, along the corridor of the First Square. He reached Treel’s room, noted again the lack of guards, and turned his body in to the nifty skid-stop move his dad taught him before ever letting him put on the blades. They had then practiced it for at least fifteen minutes before his dad let him start blading for speed. Boring. But Eli did as his dad told him and, he had to admit, it made sense. Mom had not liked the roller blades. She would definitely like them less if he got hurt.

  When his dad had told him that he could see Treel again, Eli was very happy. He had already visited the big booger several times and, each time, he always expected to see the guards back outside the door. So far, they had not reappeared. Eli had never understood why he needed guards anyway. Treel was a good guy, even for a booger.

  Eli knocked on Treel’s door and heard a faint, “Come.”

  He entered and saw Treel already seated behind the white pieces of the board.

  “Not gonna help you, Treel,” he chided the large alien. “You can have white all day and I’ll still kick your butt.”

  Treel gave Eli one of his fake snarls and led out with a pawn.

  Eli kicked off his blades and hopped onto the purple-padded chair that faced the black side of the chess board. He made his move quickly.

  As he waited for Treel to make his next move, Eli scooted back and looked under the table.

  “How big are your feet?”

  * * *

  Avery was on her way to meet Ceeray and Tane in the Third Square. She was a few minutes late and increased her pace.

  She clenched her teeth over Mr. Blue’s comments regarding the work she was doing. Just that morning during the weekly planning session, he had boldly proclaimed the project “Grant’s Folly.” Avery knew he did not approve of the project, but to insult Grant in front of the workers tasked with building the facility was too much. She knew Blue would never say such a thing if Grant were still on the planet. People can be quick to dismiss an idea when it is not their own. They can also be quick to pass judgment when the person they are offending is not in the room.

  She shrugged off the negative comments and deftly passed a group of slow-moving workers. Grant would have laughed at the comment if he had been there; he probably would have thought it was a great name for the facility.

  Which gave Avery an idea.

  Grant’s Folly.

  It had a nice ring to it.

  Avery wondered what Grant would say when she told him that Blue had named the facility. For that matter, she wondered what Blue would say. Considering the implications made her smile. It was not the way of Peace, but she enjoyed the thought just the same.

  Avery was planning how she would fully incorporate the name into her plans when she spied Ceeray and Tane walking ahead.

  Ceeray had her left hand placed firmly on Tane’s right shoulder in the escort position. It was how they had led newly blinded captives through the Minith mothership until they learned their way about the ship without an escort. The sight threatened to take Avery back to that time, but she pushed the memory away.

  She debated calling out to the pair, but decided to quicken her pace even more and catch up instead.

  Seeing Ceeray again after so many years had been a wonderful surprise for Avery.

  The two women had been friends since their initial testing by the Council and eventual delivery to the Minith. They had undergone similar training and their experiences with the Minith had been equally damaging, both physically and mentally.

  Avery had been saddened to learn that Derk had not survived the journey to Telgora. She knew how close he and Ceeray had become while living with the Minith. Though Ceeray insisted she eventually found Peace after Derk’s passing, it could not have been an easy transition. Avery did not know what she would do if Grant never made it back home. She had wanted to go with the force leaving for Telgora, but she was pragmatic, if nothing else. She knew he would not allow it, and it made no sense. She had Eli to consider, and the children’s training she was working to put together.

  And now Ceeray.

  Ceeray had volunteered to return with Titan and Gee, but her services as an interpreter were no longer needed. After living with the Telgorans for the past few years, both men could speak the language with near fluency.

  Plus, her blindness was a handicap that could be addressed on Earth. Tane’s success at replacing Avery’s surgically-removed secondary lids gave hope to Ceeray that she could once again see in the sunlight. She had confided to Avery that she had given up hope of ever seeing a sunny day again.

  It would be a long, painful recovery from the surgery, but Avery was committed to helping her friend through the ordeal. The more she had to keep her mind off her loneliness, the better she would be able to face the coming months—perhaps years—without Grant.

  Avery caught up quickly and tapped Tane’s left shoulder lightly.

  “Hey, you two,” she announced. “Sorry I am late. We just had our weekly planning meeting on Grant’s Folly.”

  Tane drew his head back in surprise.

  “Grant’s Folly?” He led Ceeray to the right side of the corridor and stopped. “What is that?”

  “Oh, it’s the name we have selected for the facility we are building in the Fourth Square,” she answered simply. Might as well get the name out now. Nonchalance was the key.

  “What are you building?” Ceeray asked. As a new recruit to Team Avery, she was not yet up on everything happening within the former prison.

  “Grant had a wonderful idea for keeping the orphans here occupied,” Avery explained. “We could use more volunteers, if you are interested.”

  “Orphans?” Ceeray seemed confused, and rightly so, Avery thought. A lot had happened on Earth in the past six years, and the interpreter had missed all of it.

  “I can explain later,” Avery answered. “It will take some time to get you up-to-date on what’s been happening while you’ve been away. Right now I want to hear what Tane has to say about your surgery.”

  “Oh, Avery!” Ceeray beamed with delight. “He says I will be able to see again. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Avery laughed, caught up in the other woman’s joy. She remembered her own surgery after being rescued from the Minith. The pain was temporary and the benefits were lasting. She had no doubt Ceeray would do well.

  She reached out and took Ceeray’s free hand.

  “Yes, it is! And I know just the place to take you when you have your sight back.”

  Avery thought of the grass-covered hilltop she and Grant liked to visit. The place where he had proposed, and the site where Eli had been conceived. It would be nice to share the spot with a friend while Grant was gone.

  “I cannot wait!”

  “Hold on, you two.” Tane reminded them that he was still there. “The surgery is not minor and, as I’ve been telling Ceeray, it is not without risk or pain.”

  “Oh, Peace on you, Tane Rolan!” Avery removed Ceeray’s left hand from Tane’s shoulder and placed it on hers. “It will be fine. Ceeray has endured much more pain than that. Right, Cee?”

  “You would know better than anyone, Av,” she replied with a gentle squeeze to Avery’s shoulder. “You were right there beside me the entire time.”

  “And I will be beside you this time as well,” Avery answered as she covered the hand on her shoulder with her o
wn. It felt good to be back with someone she thought was lost forever.

  They could catch up later. For now, she had business to address, and turned to Tane.

  “So, Tane, when can we expect the initial delivery of roller blades?”

  Tane shook his head ruefully.

  “Grant said you would be asking about those.”

  * * *

  Mouse left the small, two-room area he shared with Sue in the First Square. She had been sick every day for the past two months and he worried about her. The doctors said everything was fine. The sickness was hitting Sue harder than most, but still, nothing to be concerned about.

  But that did not stop his worrying. Sue, on her knees hunched over a bucket, was not a sight that instilled much confidence. Despite appearances to the contrary—he was well over six feet tall, she was barely five—Sue had always been the strong one in their relationship. She was his rock and his compass. Without her to guide him, he would have died in Violent’s Prison within the first week of being there. He knew it. She probably knew it. But no one else seemed to know it.

  Grant obviously did not.

  If he did, Mouse thought, he would not have left me in charge.

  One of Mouse’s greatest strengths was that he knew himself well.

  He knew he was a very good pilot. The best, if he was being honest. He loved to fly, and he loved teaching others to fly. Leading the air force of Earth’s Army was a natural extension of that. No problem there.

  Dealing with the Leadership Council? No problem there, either. In Mouse’s mind, they were a bunch of Peace-loving bureaucrats who could not harm him now that Violent’s Prison was no longer taking new inmates. Truth be told, he rather enjoyed meeting with them to provide updates and request changes to Earth policy. It gave him a rush to know he could affect so many people just by stating and justifying a highly defensible position.

  He also had no issue being Grant’s second-in-command, as long as he stayed second-in-command.

  Grant’s going to another planet and leaving him in charge of the army, though? That was not supposed to happen.

  Knowing yourself well means knowing your weaknesses as well as your strengths, and the big man knew where he struggled.

  He needed a strong hand to guide him; someone who would push him to do what needed to be done. And now with one of his rocks sick and the other gone, he wondered if he had the strength to push himself.

  He wondered if he could be his own rock.

  Mouse pulled the folded to-do list from his pocket and studied it for the hundredth time.

  Chapter 34

  Being responsible for an entire army was the most difficult thing Grant had ever done.

  In his previous life as a noncommissioned officer in the Democratic Federation Army, he had been responsible for himself and for the men in his unit. His days were filled with small unit tactics, individual instruction, and meeting the expectations of his commanding officers. It was his job to ensure that his men were properly trained, equipped, and mentally prepared to complete their mission.

  And he had been one of the best.

  In his new life, Grant’s military focus had shifted dramatically. By default, he had inherited responsibility for global preparations against a possible re-invasion by the Minith. Initially, he struggled to make the transition, but over the past six years, he had grown into his role as Earth’s army had grown. He had successfully overseen the recruitment of tens of thousands of soldiers. He had helped design the weapons and vehicles those soldiers needed. He had established training regimens for his forces, and ensured the commanders he appointed knew what was expected of them and their forces. In short, he had planted the seeds of a global army and tended to its growth.

  And now he had left that army behind.

  His new role was one of expeditionary leader. He was aboard an alien spaceship, hurtling toward a confrontation with Minith forces on another planet. As he had six years before, he struggled to understand the nuances of the new role in which he found himself; struggled with the doubts that came with the mantle of command.

  Grant went over the forces he had elected to bring on this voyage, and hoped he had chosen wisely. The size of the mothership dictated many of his choices. His knowledge of the Minith, and their forces on Telgora, had dictated the remainder.

  Besides the two dozen fighter carriers in the flight bay, he had loaded twenty troop carriers, four artillery carriers, and eight tank carriers. The crew required to operate those vehicles numbered slightly less than a hundred and fifty. That left room on the ship for six hundred foot soldiers and the logistical supplies to support combat operations for a sustained period.

  All told, there were just under seven hundred and fifty humans on the ship—and one Telgoran.

  Grant sat in his quarters that, with Gee’s assistance, had been expanded to accommodate a large table with ample seating. The table served as his desk and had been outfitted with a vid screen and links to the ship’s databanks. The table was also the primary gathering place for Grant, Titan, and the others involved with planning the landing on Telgora.

  He had shifted the center of operations away from the ship’s flight control center within days of leaving Earth. Although large enough, the setup of the control center did not foster the type of working environment Grant required. He preferred a large table where personal interaction, discussions, and planning could take place easily and efficiently. The arrangement of consoles within the command center simply did not afford that type of interaction.

  He was searching through the databanks for information on the Telgorans when Titan entered and dropped into a seat at the opposite end of the table.

  “So, how did the training go?”

  Grant thought for a second, then replied in Telgoran, “It went well. I thought you said there would be pain?”

  “Ha! Not all of us possess the same high tolerance for pain that you do, Grant.”

  “Yeah, well, you can thank Tane for that,” Grant retorted. “Meet any good knees lately?”

  Grant referred to the fight that he and Titan had had in Violent’s Prison when they first met. He knew it was a sore spot for Titan. No one else had ever defeated him in a hand-to-hand contest. Then again, no one else had the training Grant possessed, or the bioengineered legs that were courtesy of Senior Scientist Tane Rolan.

  “Actually, yes,” Titan mumbled. He looked at Grant and nodded. “Telgorans may be skinnier than a ten-year-old girl, but the muscles under that gray skin are pow-er-ful.”

  “Really?” Grant was skeptical. Except for the over-large head that looked like it came straight from Easter Island, Patahbay appeared to be one of the weakest creatures Grant had ever laid eyes on. The Telgoran’s limbs were skinnier that Eli’s.

  “Would you like to find out for yourself?”

  Grant eyed the large man sitting on the opposite side of the table. He caught the glint in Titan’s eye and knew he was being set up, but he had never backed down from a direct challenge. Not that he had won them all, but backing down? Not in his character.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  Titan smiled.

  * * *

  Patahbay stood unmoving and alert. He was ready for dindin.

  His room had become a cell and the idea of dindin—even with these weak humans—was exciting. He had not felt this good since leaving the comfort of the Family.

  The general shuffled back and forth on the other side of the large area that had been cleared. This was where the humans shared their meals of strange meat and plants. His supply of tatal was stored in a room nearby.

  The general waved his arms in a circular motion, twisted his tiny head about his thick shoulders, and flexed his torso strangely. Patahbay assumed it was a ritual of the humans to move in such a manner prior to dindin. He remembered the human called Titan acting in a similar manner when he had attempted dindin with the Family.

  The strange movement ritual would not help the general any more than
it had helped Titan. Titan had lost his three attempts to one of the younger and weaker of the Family.

  And Patahbay was neither young, nor weak.

  Patahbay was the master of dindin among the Family. His top ranking was the reason he had been selected to face the humans when they first landed on Telgora. It was why he had been sent to the human planet by the Family.

  He was the master.

  Patahbay watched silently as the general completed his ritual and gave a single, curious nod. Patahbay did not understand the nod. There was no decision to be made, simply dindin to be attempted. Unable to decipher the movement, Patahbay dismissed it.

  He was prepared. He felt both accepting of, and excited by, the challenge.

  He remained motionless, as was his way, while waiting for the signal to begin.

  * * *

  Gee pushed through the group of soldiers standing inside the doorway to the dining hall. They politely parted, allowing him to pass into the room.

  The engineer noticed that the tables and chairs had been pushed to the outer walls, where more of Grant’s forces milled. The soldiers—he still marveled that Earth now had soldiers—were lined around the perimeter, two and three deep in most places.

  Except for Titan, who stood in the middle, the center of the rectangular room was vacant. Gee then noticed Patahbay standing calmly on the left side, while Grant occupied the right. Gee had seen enough of the soldiers exercising over the past few weeks to know that Grant was stretching his body and loosening his muscles. He was obviously preparing for physical activity, and Gee wondered what was going on.