by Aaron Hubble
“I can’t complain.”
“Then tell them everything they need to know,” she pleaded with him. “The CPF is nothing but a mob of murderers and liars anyway. You know that. I know that. Let’s make this our new home, Lucas.” She stood. Her head felt light and Lucas’ face wavered in front of her. She stumbled across the floor on her new legs and fell into his lap. She saw the stunned look on his face. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. It was cute, endearing. It was so Lucas. She wrapped her arms around his neck and looked into his eyes.
“Do you know how much I love you, Lucas Kreg?” Her finger traced a line down his nose and pressed against his lips.
“Uh…listen, I don’t think—”
Evie interrupted him. “I love you more than you could ever imagine, and if you’ll take me into your bedroom I’ll show.”
He jumped up suddenly and stood her on the floor in front of him. Taking several steps backward, he put distance between them. “Listen…I’m flattered, but we’re not married. It wouldn’t be right of me to lead you on and pretend in order to get you into bed. It was nice talking to you. Thank you for the visit, but you should probably go and sleep off the wine.”
Evie fought to keep her balance as she watched the only man she’d ever loved turn his back on her. She opened her mouth trying to find words, but snapped it shut as a grief soaked whimper threatened to escape. He knocked on the door. The first guard stepped in. “My guest is ready to go back to her apartment.”
He stepped to the side, refusing to look at her. She stood still for a moment. Embarrassment and rejection swirled inside. Tears welled in her eyes. Forcing herself to move, Evie brushed past Lucas and into the hallway without looking back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Aereas - Alam, Ma’Ha’Nae city under Lake Keali
Evie stumbled through the door of her apartment and melted into her bed. She curled into a ball and pulled the covers up over her head. It swam from the alcohol, but her heart ached with Andy’s continual rejection.
How could he look at her and not see the woman he’d loved? She saw it; why couldn’t he? What had they done to him?
The stark emptiness hit her hard. She was alone in a city full of people. Right down the hall was the man she was hopelessly in love with, and yet he might as well have been light years away from her. Great sobs wracked her body as her chest heaved, and she cried into her pillow until sleep soothed her.
****
Leaning against the wall, Andy took a deep breath. What a weird night. Had he ever turned down a woman like that before? He doubted it. Only an idiot did that.
Andy let a long breath escape his lips. He turned the information Evie had let slip over in his mind. If these people had a plan, then he needed one as well. Getting back to the CPF was his top priority. A game plan began to form in his mind.
It was just like he’d thought. Answers to the tough problems always presented themselves to those who were patient. The time to act had finally come.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Earth - Australian outback
When Noni had said Dumas was holed up in some remote corner of the bush, she wasn’t kidding.
The compound the man was hiding in was miles from the nearest…anything. Bobby had been to lonely places around the globe, but this was definitely a man trying very hard to limit his contact with other humans.
The intel had been a little sketchy on the type of structure Dumas was hiding in. Noni’s information talked of an old farmhouse, and to be fair, there was an old farmhouse on the property, but he doubted the former governor was in the dilapidated shack. A squat concrete building sat in the middle of several hundred acres of sun baked dirt and scrub trees. A tall fence topped with razor wire ringed the building and several acres.
Bobby flicked his eyes, selecting the night vision function on the HUD of his helmet. His visor shifted, and the landscape was painted in ghostly green. The compound looked like an old prison. What did matter was finding a way beyond the fence and into the building without alerting Dumas’ security forces. CPF governors were notorious for having multiple exit strategies. On several occasions, R3 had cornered a governor with seemingly no place to run, only to have them simply disappear. Catching Dumas and his security team by surprise was critical, otherwise it could be months before they had another chance like this one, and Bobby was done waiting.
Charles crawled next to him, his face smeared with dark paint. Shaggy camouflage hung off him, making his friend look like the surrounding vegetation. This was the second night of observation. The team had been trying to determine any patterns in the comings and goings around the building. So far, it had been pretty locked down. Several men had moved in and out, but they were doing their best to look like ordinary people. They carried no visible weapons, and they went about their tasks in the garden or with the livestock and then disappeared into the building. It looked very much like any other small commune which had sprung up in an out-of-the-way place far from the watchful eyes of the CPF.
“Anything new from our friends?” Charles whispered.
“Nothing,” Bobby said.
“Well, I’ve got something for you.” Charles passed his handheld to Bobby. “I took the liberty of doing a little research on this facility. It had too much of an institutional look to be just a commune. Of course I was right, as always.”
“Of course,” Bobby said, taking his helmet off.
“I’d get tired of that by now if I were you,” Charles said flatly. “Anyway, this building used to be a home for the criminally insane before the plague. The building has been here a long time. I took a chance and sent a message to headquarters, and this is what they sent back.” He tapped the screen. A floor plan appeared
“Eureka,” said Charles.
“I’d kiss you if you weren’t so ugly,” Bobby said as he slapped Charles on the back.
“Samantha might have something to say about that as well.”
“True. Have you found anything useful in the floor plan?” Bobby asked.
“It’s locked down pretty tight, but I think our best bet is to come through the back door. From there we can split up and search the main floor and the basement. Knowing the kind of slimy worm Dumas is, I’d say he’s holed up in the basement.”
Bobby looked over the plan. “It doesn’t look like there are any other exits besides the front and back doors.”
“That’s what I thought, but he could have customized the place to fit his needs.”
“Alright. Let’s keep a few men outside and have the bird circling overhead. I don’t want to lose this guy,” Bobby said. “There’s no sense finessing this one, either. We blow the back door with some charges, and use gas as we go from room to room. Let the squad know what’s happening and have them get their masks on.”
Charles nodded and crawled away. Bobby put his helmet back on and looked through the green night vision field. Everything was quiet, but that would change very soon. He would make sure of it.
****
Bolt cutters made quick work of the fence, and now the team stood in front of the compound door. The magnesium flared brilliantly, creating intense heat and melting the door lock from the inside out. Bobby nodded to the rebels behind him and then kicked the door in while Charles lobbed a canister through the entrance. The room filled with smoke, but their tactical face shields allowed them to hustle through unaffected.
Charles and four others swept through the front door with rifles raised. They moved up the corridor and disappeared into the first level. Bobby and four more rebels located the stairwell quickly. Bobby ignited a canister and tossed it down the stairs. In his head he counted off ten seconds and then led his men into the basement.
A room opened up at the lower level. Another cannister was tossed in. While green smoke filled the room, Bobby saw movement in the far corner.
“Down!” he yelled.
His men flattened themselves on the floor as the rapid fire of an automatic weapo
n tore through the wall where Bobby had just been standing. Beside him, Hollins’ rifle sounded several sharp reports, then the gunfire in the room stopped. He could just make out the form of a man slumped over the back of a chair. Bobby nodded his thanks to Hollins.
To his left, a hallway ran the length of the building with three doors on either side. Two doors banged open and men wearing gas masks leaned out into the hallway and began firing toward Bobby and his men. Bobby and another man stayed in the stairwell and fired down the hall while the other two men moved across the hallway into the open room. They took up covered positions as the bodyguards ducked into their respective rooms. Bobby pointed at Hollins and then at the door on the right side of the hallway. Hollins nodded. Bobby sighted down the barrel of his rifle and waited, taking a deep breath. The bodyguard leaned out to take another shot, but never had the chance; a bullet from Bobby’s rifle tore through his forehead. The other guard met the same fate as Hollins made his shot count.
Bobby signaled with his hands and his men moved quickly out of their covered positions and down the hallway. The adrenaline was pumping through Bobby now. This was the most dangerous part. They were in a confined space with no idea what lay behind any of the doors. Stepping over the man he’d shot, Bobby swept the room with his rifle, but only found two empty beds and few pieces of worn furniture. Over his shoulder he heard Hollins say, “Clear.”
“Clear as well,” Bobby said.
Hollins had reached the second door, trailed by Ragnon, another squad member. Another empty room. Bobby and Amodela took up positions on either side of the door opposite the one Hollins had just opened. Bobby looked at Amodela and nodded. The rebel nodded back. Bobby reached up, turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. Gunfire came from inside the room and ripped the wall opposite the door. Thankfully Hollins and Ragnon had moved down the hallway to the last doors or they would have been directly in the line of fire.
Amodela pulled the pin on a canister of gas and tossed it into the room as gunfire continued to pour out of the doorway. The sound of choking soon followed as the gunfire stopped. Bobby advanced quickly into the room, pulling the trigger on his rifle when he saw movement. Two men went down screaming in pain. A third had dropped his weapon and was gagging on the floor. Out of the corner of his eye, Bobby saw a figure. He whirled toward the motion just in time to see a man disappearing through a hatch in the floor.
The bastard had an escape plan after all.
Jumping to his feet, Bobby scrambled after what he could only assume was Dumas and yelled into his comm. “Charles! Dumas has a secondary exit. I’m in pursuit.”
“Wait for your men, Bobby. Don’t go all American cowboy on me,” Charles’ voice came back to him.
Bobby ignored him, slung his rifle over his shoulder and descended the ladder leading down into a dim tunnel. The pale light of an occasional bulb hanging from the ceiling lit the tunnel just enough for him to see Dumas’ back. The mask was acting as a hindrance now, so he ripped it off his face and dropped it to the floor. Footsteps echoed down the hallway and Bobby sprinted down the tunnel after Dumas. He could have shot the man in the back, but Bobby wanted him alive, at least for a little while. Potentially, the former governor was in possession of valuable information. Once he had any information the man possessed, Bobby didn’t care how long Dumas continued to draw breath.
“Dumas! Surrender now and I’ll make sure they don’t feed you to the dingos!” Bobby yelled after the fleeing man. He did it more for effect. Dumas had always been a coward and Bobby wanted him to know someone with a gun was very close. Bobby saw Dumas reach a door at the other end of the tunnel and heard the rattle of a lock over the man’s labored breathing. Fresh air rushed in when Dumas opened the door and disappeared outside.
Bobby burst out into the cool night air, and saw the portly figure of Christopher Dumas trying his best to run through the brush and scrub trees. Turning around to get his bearings, he saw the concrete building some distance away. His men who had remained on the outside probably weren’t patrolling this far out, and he could see the transport vehicle hovering on the far side of the building. It was up to him to bring Dumas down.
Bobby gritted his teeth. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
Feeling renewed energy, Bobby dug the toes of his boots into the soft soil and began following Dumas into the scrub. The man wasn’t visible anymore, but Bobby could hear the dry branches snapping as Dumas pushed his way through the undergrowth in a desperate attempt to escape.
Branches slapped Bobby’s face and body, but he ran impervious to pain, single-minded in his goal of bringing down the man who had been responsible for the deaths and starvation of hundreds of thousands on this continent. The signs of Dumas’ passing were easy to spot: Twigs and branches hung broken and twisting in the night breeze. Bobby pushed past them and caught sight of Dumas as he moved into a clearing. Reaching for his hip, Bobby drew his pistol, knelt, took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. The fleeing figure spun at the impact of the bullet and Bobby saw a mist explode in the moonlight from the man’s shoulder. Dumas fell to the ground writhing in pain. Bobby holstered the pistol and stalked toward the man.
Dumas lay blubbering on the ground, cradling his arm and crying. Bobby rolled him over with the toe of his boot.
“Don’t kill me! Please, I’m an important man. I can get you anything you want. Just don’t kill me!” Dumas cried, holding his uninjured arm over his face to shield himself from the blows he thought were sure to come.
Kneeling, Bobby pulled the man’s arm away from his face. “I’m not going to kill you yet, even though you deserve it. Not until you tell me what you know about the Farpointe Initiative.”
“Farpointe Initiative? Why do you want to know about that?” Dumas said.
“I’m curious like that. What is it?”
Dumas took a deep breath. “It’s Kalu’s plan to save humanity.”
Bobby was puzzled. “Save them? From what?”
“The plague. It’s back, and we need a new home,” Dumas gasped, his shoulder now saturated black in the moonlight.
“What else?”
Dumas shook his head. “Not until I have assurances. I’ll tell you where you can find more information if you promise me I’ll live.”
“Where’s the information?”
“Do I have assurances?”
Bobby nodded. Dumas closed his eyes and took another deep breath before wincing and then starting to speak. “In the room where you followed me into the tunnel is my desk.” Dumas winced again. “Third drawer down has a false bottom. Under it is a micro data card.”
Bobby activated his comm. “Hollins, I need you to go into the room where Dumas has his desk. It’s the same room where the tunnel entrance is in the floor. Check the third drawer down and see if you find something interesting under a false bottom.”
“Copy. I’m already in the room. Hold tight.”
For a few moments the only sound was Dumas wheezing and whimpering on the ground. Finally, the comm crackled to life. “Got it. Plugged it into my tablet, and it contains files on something called Farpointe. Is that what you’re looking for?”
“Exactly what I’m hunting for. Thanks.”
Bobby closed the channel and then raised the pistol and pointed it at Dumas’ head. The man’s eyes grew wide and he visibly began to shake.
“You…you promised!”
“And you murdered thousands while vowing to protect them. I guess we both lied.”
He inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly while Dumas cried, tears running over his fat cheeks. “Christopher Dumas, for the crimes against all free people on Earth, I sentence you to—”
The crackle of dry underbrush interrupted the impromptu sentencing. Charles stepped into the clearing. Bobby watched him pull up short, take in the scene and put away his pistol away.
“Hey, mate. What’s going on?”
“Go back to the compound, Charles. I have one more thing to take care
of.”
“Not like this you don’t.”
Bobby’s fingers flexed around the pistol grip. “This is what he deserves. You’ve watched just as many friends die as I have. He had a hand in every one of those deaths. What about the thousands who’ve died because he kept food and medicine stockpiled in warehouses?”
Charles walked to his side and laid a hand on top of Bobby’s pistol, pushing it toward the ground. “He does, but not like this. This isn’t your job. You accomplished your goal, and bringing him back alive,” he nodded at Dumas. “Will mean more to the people who’ve lost homes and loved ones to him. Let them decide his fate. That’s what we’re trying to build. What you’re doing is chapter one in the CPF handbook. Don’t go there.”
Bobby looked at Charles’ hand resting on top of his pistol and then he looked at the face of his friend. He felt a volatile mixture of relief, disappointment, and rage. Charles was right, and he’d just saved him from doing something he’d need to answer for later.
And he hated his friend right now for doing it.
Bobby holstered his pistol and stormed past Charles. “Put him in the transport. Make sure he’s quiet and very, very far away from me,” he called over his shoulder.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Low Aerean orbit - Continental Peace Federation command ship
Cullen was sitting in his father’s private dining area. Just off the main mess hall, the small room offered the admiral a quiet place to relax separate from the general population of the ship. The admiral preferred to keep his distance in order to maintain that distinct separation of rank. Everyone had their place, and the admiral’s was at the top. Cullen knew that about his adopted father. Sometimes, he felt the only reason he’d been allowed to remain in the family was because the admiral saw the potential, and the future usefulness, of Cullen’s mind.
