Father McKinley put a hand on his shoulder and ushered him inside as he shut the door behind them. “Tell me what happened.”
“Gabriel, they made me fight Gabriel!” Alden dropped into an empty chair with force. “But you know what? I don’t care! I’m glad they made us fight. That traitor is the one spreading the lies about me!” He slammed his fist on the table, before standing up to pace around the room.
“Please, sit down.” Father McKinley motioned him back to the chair. He moved to the kettle and poured some hot water into a cup along with an Earl Gray tablet. “Here, drink this. It’ll make you feel better.”
Alden stormed to the chair and crossed his arms as he sat. He was trying to contain the heaves of anger, but it felt like he would burst.
“Now, use this to clean your wounds.”
Alden grabbed the hot cloth that Father McKinley was offering him. He dabbed it on to his forehead. His breath finally started to slow.
“Now, tell me what happened.”
“The other students told us to fight. They just wanted to see someone get hurt!” Alden dropped the bloody rag onto the table. “I hope they’re satisfied!”
“Why do you think they wanted you to fight?”
“It’s because of what they did to us on Hyperion! Just look at this.” Alden pointed at the gash on his forehead. He knew it was already healing. “Another twenty minutes, this won’t even be here.”
“Please take deep breaths, Alden. I understand your frustration, believe me I do. However, at the time, the doctors felt it was the only way to save your life. There were more internal wounds than they were capable of repairing. They had to infuse your system with the nano-bots to repair your internal organs. What they did saved your life.”
“Everything is always done to me! No one asks what I want, what I would like to be doing. Why am I even here? I never signed up for this school. What gives them the right to tell me what to do?”
“I know that you are mad, and you have every right to be. Horrible things have happened to you, but you should be proud of yourself. You succeeded at your mission; you stopped the Federation from building a fusion reactor. That technology always leads to a bomb. After the Helsinki invasion and the peace treaty brokered by the Council, those weapons were outlawed. The fact that you were able to deactivate their device, and bring one back, is the most heroic thing I’ve ever seen. Your actions have saved millions of lives.”
“I don’t care about millions of lives,” Alden retorted. “I care about Daniel, Mary, and Gabriel. And now I’ve lost all of them.”
“You can’t keep beating yourself up over this. You were sent on a mission that was too dangerous. It wouldn’t have turned out any better if Gabriel or somebody else had been in charge. You did the best you could.”
“That’s not what the students are saying.”
“Alden, life is tough; the sooner you learn that, the better off you’ll be. You can’t focus on, or worry about, what everybody else thinks of you. All that matters is what you think of yourself.”
Alden couldn’t look up at Father McKinley, he felt so ashamed. “I’ve been having headaches that are so painful I can’t concentrate. I’m never able to sleep more than a few hours each night. I’m just so tired all the time.”
Father McKinley sighed. “That is perfectly normal after what you have been through. Daniel and Mary wouldn’t want you to beat yourself up over this. You have to let them go and forgive yourself for what happened.”
“How can I possibly do that?”
“Only you can know. Now, how’s that tea?”
Alden opened his eyes. It was still pitch black inside the room. A small ray of light came in from underneath the hall door. Was last night a dream? He rolled over, but Kira was still sound asleep. She looked so peaceful. The thin sheet barely covered her figure.
He quietly slipped out of bed and left the room. The message from his friend was still on his wrist deck from the night before. hasn’t appeared on black market. still looking. use extreme caution. reactor involved in crisis.
Alden clicked to add a new entry, Thereon said he didn’t move weapons through Apollo City, but arms dealer said he was the contact. Why the discrepancy?
He moved through the various corridors, still half asleep. A few minutes later he wasn’t surprised to find himself in front of the empty tubes that used to house the zero-grav suits. He walked around the corner. There was a surprisingly large and well-lit work area. The white and blue suits hung from the ceiling. The feet were just a few centimeters off the ground.
His wrist deck beeped, new message: One of them lied. It’s your job to find out which.
Alden touched the suit; it was so cold. He tapped a few commands on his wrist deck and the automated pulley system moved the suit to one of the work tables and then laid it down across the bench. He’d been so angry with Thereon for not coming clean the day before, but in retrospect it was ludicrous to think someone would give up that kind of intelligence so quickly. He hated to admit it, but he still had a lot to learn.
“I saw the way you moved in that suit, impressive.”
Alden jumped. He’d thought he was alone. At the edge of the room, General Stone emerged from the shadows. “I assumed you’d be down here this morning. I haven’t had the opportunity to thank you for my rescue yet. Without you, I’d still be rotting in that cryo chamber.”
“It was nothing, really. The resistance would have freed you whether I was there or not.”
“Either way, it was a huge act of bravery.” General Stone extended his hand.
“You’re welcome.”
“Remind me of your name again.”
“Alden.”
“Ah. Thereon and I have already discussed your situation at length. It’s not unusual for military defectors to end up here. Welcome, and thank you again for your service. So, I see you’ve taken an interest in my blue suit.”
Alden nodded. “It’s an incredible thing you built. I felt like I had the speed and capabilities of gravity combat.”
“They’re lethal machines alright.”
“Thereon said they haven’t been able to fix or upgrade the systems since you were arrested. I had planned to pull it apart and see if I could find the problem.”
“Alexander and I built in a number of safety protocols and encryptions to stop the suits from being used if they fell into the wrong hands.I’ve passed on all my knowledge about these suits to Thereon. Please work with him to get them running once more.” He indicated the other suit that still dangled from the ceiling.
“Did I hear that my services are required?” Thereon entered the room with a gun slung over his shoulder.
“We need these suits fixed before we can make our next move. I don’t have the time to assist you with them, but Alden has agreed to help. I’ll be in the command center, but don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions.”
Alden watched him leave. “So, you’re not in charge anymore?”
“Nope, I was relieved of my command last night.”
“That’s an odd way to show appreciation for what you did.”
Thereon smiled. “It’s not like that. I never wanted the position in the first place. My wife and I couldn’t be happier that he’s taken over.”
“You’re married?” Alden was a bit surprised; how’d he miss that?
“We don’t exactly make it public.” Thereon picked a tool off the bench and handed it over. “Unscrew plates here and here.” He gestured to several different locations on the chest. “If the Council had found out, they would have used her to get to me. We married in secret, and have only told a select few. I won’t let anything happen to her.”
“Why are you telling me then? Not that I don’t appreciate it.”
“Things are different now. The General has returned. They don’t need me to lead troops any more. I’d much rather work with my hands on things like this.” He pointed at the suit. “If I never have to give another motivational speech ab
out not giving up, it’ll be too soon.”
Alden felt an invisible weight lift from his shoulders. He would never admit it, but since their arrival, part of him had felt like he was competing with Thereon for Kira’s attention.
“Your secret is safe with me. So, what do you know about these suits?”
“In another life I was an engineer. When the leadership role fell into my lap, the first thing I did was try to get these suits working again. Unfortunately I was never able to bypass the security protocols. In my haste, I tried to force a manual override of the white suit, but it tripped the fail-safe and fried the system. We were never able to power it back up. As you can see, I left this one alone. Stone explained the security system to me earlier this morning.”
“Do you know what he has planned?” Alden asked. “He seemed pretty fired up last night.”
“He’s a machine. Didn’t sleep a minute, had me set up calls with resistance fighters across the lunar surface and even some on Terra.”
Alden pictured the masked soldiers on the Island, buildings engulfed in flame. They had to have been based on Earth to mount that type of attack. The reactor was obviously not in Apollo City, but it could easily be hidden in one of the other colonies. However, it would have been difficult to smuggle off the surface. It had to be back on Earth or with Alexander.
“Will we be required to attack Earth?” Alden asked.
“Have family back there?”
Alden nodded.
“I can’t say for sure, but I doubt it. The attack on Traterous took everything we had. It would be next to impossible to mount any form of credible attack on Terra. They’re just too powerful. We have a hard enough time getting people to and from the surface as it is.”
“What about from one of the other colonies?”
“Even more doubtful. You’ve seen what we have here and we’re one of the most well-equipped of all the resistance movements. I hear there are food shortages in New Beijing. If they can’t even feed themselves, how would they launch an attack on Earth?”
Something wasn’t adding up, he’d seen firsthand what the colonists were capable of on the Island. Thereon wasn’t telling him something.
“That should do it.” Thereon lifted the metal chest plate off the suit, and set it aside. They pulled several other components off the chest and lower abdomen area. Securely placed at the back of the suit was the small core. It was visibly scarred and showed signs of damage. He twisted the charred energy canister until it was released from the chamber. Suddenly there was a loud clanking sound as something dropped behind them.
They spun around towards the entrance, but no one was there.
“We already heard you, come out now,” Thereon commanded. Despite giving up his leadership role, he still demanded attention and respect. A teenage boy walked out from behind the corner. “Naiad! What have I told you about sneaking around while I work?”
“Who’s this?” Alden asked.
“This is my…son.”
“Really, you have a son too? Well he umm… looks just like you.” He knew it was an awkward thing to say the moment he said it. Thereon’s pale skin was a far cry from the kid’s dark complexion.
“That’s kind of you to say, but we adopted him.” Naiad approached the table.
Thereon looked over at the boy. “If you want to help, grab a tray from the bench and pick up all the small parts from the suit. We don’t want to lose anything.”
He smiled and then hurried off to do what he’d been asked.
“Good kid.”
Thereon nodded. “I shared a cell with his father in Traterous. His wife died during childbirth. He made me promise to look after him when I was released.”
Along the far wall, the boy picked pieces off the floor.
“When will his father be released?”
“He passed away during an interrogation session not long after I was let out. His father was the only reason I survived. I love that kid more than anything else in this world.”
“Does he know about his parents?” Alden had spent more nights than he cared to remember imagining what his parents looked like; who they were, where they came from. For as long as he could remember, it had just been him and Father McKinley.
“Every day, I fear he will come and finally ask me where his parents are. Idon’t know what I’m going to tell him, or how he’ll respond.”
Alden’s grip tightened around the tool as he maneuvered a bolt into the suit. “I’m sure you’ll think of something when the time comes.”
“Careful,” he cut in. “Any tighter and you’ll fuse that bolt into the metal.”
“Sorry.” He picked up another piece and ratcheted it into place. “So, with General Stone back, will Alexander return now?”
He shrugged. “If this comes to war, Stone will want every asset he can pull together. It doesn’t get bigger than Alexander Hawkins.” Thereon looked up from his work. “You should have seen the general last night, everything he did had purpose. The man was on fire. The look in his eyes...if the war came tomorrow he’d win it himself, just like Helsinki.”
Since they’d returned from Traterous the only thing anyone had talked about was war. Alden had seen war; it was ugly and devastating. He seemed to be the only one in the colony that didn’t want the world to fall into chaos. It was imperative he learned when the attack would begin so he could warn the Council. To stop this he would need a lot of support.
Whoever betrayed the Council was still out there. Once he discovered the timeline for the attack he would have to pass it onto someone he could trust. The Polemarch! He’d known him since he was young. Vasentus trusted him; he was about to appoint him to internal affairs. Not to mention, as Polemarch he was in charge of the Council’s military. He’d be able to send him the troops required to quell the rebellion. Unfortunately, he still didn’t know if he’d survived the assassination attempt during the attack on the Island. Not to mention how he’d get in contact with him.
Naiad dropped one of the pieces he’d picked up. It clanked against the cement.
If he brought the Council back here, this would all go away. He could stop the increased hostilities before anyone else was lost, but what would happen to Thereon and Naiad? He could try and persuade the Council to be lenient on Thereon, but deep down he knew that wasn’t possible. Naiad would grow up without any family, another angry colonist unable to release his rage in a positive way. The downward spiral would continue. Would he be sent back here in ten years to fight another rebellion? Was it possible for the lunar colonists to live in peace with the Three Nations and the Council? Was freedom the best option for peace?
The next few days passed in a blur of unending work. Alden barely slept and he spent every available moment in the shop rebuilding the suits. Kira came by regularly with food and often stayed to help. Despite the long hours, he hadn’t felt this good in a long time. On the Island he’d loved to spend time in the hangar, working on his plane. He was always trying to find a way to make it faster, deadlier.
Thereon and Naiad worked tirelessly with him on both suits. It was as if the project brought purpose back into Thereon’s life. Something he could control. Groups of soldiers, and other visitors, stopped by regularly and checked in on his progress. This was usually followed by some congratulations or unsolicited offers of advice. He was thankful for the breaks in the silence. When he was left to his thoughts, they always returned to the same place. The events replayed over and over in his mind like a broken record worn past its useable life.
He was back on the Island. It was a beautiful day and he walked down the sidewalk at the edge of campus. Students were forbidden from leaving the grounds except for exercises and combat practice. It had been a week since his fight with Gabriel, and several months since they’d returned from Hyperion. It was time to go. Alden glanced over his shoulder to make sure that no one had followed him.
The coast was clear. He’d timed it with the period change. When he returned, he’d come up
with an excuse for his tardiness. Alden turned right and jogged up the dirt road that climbed up the side of the central mountain. A switchback path had been carved through the jungle. He hoped they had a nice view up there.
“Where are you going?”
He reeled around, but all he found was the empty path behind him. The trees swayed in the tropical wind. It gave the jungle a sense of unease and restlessness.
“Who’s there? Who’s following me?”
An odd sense fell over him. It was as if he was being watched, but no response came. He had made it far enough up the path that he was out of earshot of the campus. Until this moment he’d been sure that his absence had gone unnoticed.
Alden increased the speed of his jog and continued up the mountain. He was surrounded by ghostly apparitions of Daniel, Mary, and Gabriel. Years and years spent running up and down this very path. He could picture them as children playing tag or racing each other to the summit.
Crack! He jumped and turned to his left, but there was nothing. He had definitely heard something this time. “I know you’re out there, stop messing around and come out of the bushes!” There was only deafening silence.
“If you don’t come out here, I’m going in after you!” More silence.
“Assholes!” Alden sprinted the rest of the way up the trail. Even alone amidst the dense jungle, he couldn’t get any peace. No matter where he went, the comments, taunts and judging followed him.
“Screw everybody!” Alden yelled at the air as he ran. He hated this place!
At the fork in the trail he ran to his left down the dirt path until it opened up onto a small clearing. Beyond the outer edges of the field, the mountain sloped away to the campus far below and the ocean beyond that.
In the middle of the open space were two simple graves. He used his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He approached the headstones one slow step at a time. He made sure to give them a wide berth. Slowly rounding the edge of the plot, he knelt, and for the first time since the mission, was reunited with his teammates. Running his fingers over the stone, Alden felt each groove, almost as if reading them without seeing. Daniel, Mary…
The Last Revolution Page 24
