by Bobby Adair
He shrugs again. “No buts. Just shit the way it is.”
Bleak.
Probably true.
Maybe the best we can hope for are respites where we can pretend the current peace will last forever.
We wait in silence, watching the gray slurry drift between machines in various states of repair.
Finally, I ask, “What’s going to happen?”
“You should know.”
Trying to defer, I say, “You’re the experienced one.”
“You’ve got the bug in your head,” Brice argues. “It’s pretty much the same thing they’ve got. Can’t you sense them? Can’t you read their minds?”
I laugh.
“Why’s that funny?” He’s put off. He thinks I’m holding out on him. “Is there some spaghetti-head secret that I should know?”
I shake my head. “You know, if Phil were here—”
“Phil?” Brice scoffs. Phil has a way of turning people against him, whether acquaintances or those he’s known for years.
I tap my head. “The implant, you know, the Grays don’t give us an owner’s manual with this thing when they put it in. They don’t even know how to instruct us in its use. When I was a kid, my teachers all had implants, bugs installed when they were adults.” I snort when I think of how ridiculous the whole thing was. “Even as first- and second-graders, having had bugs in our heads since a few weeks after birth, we were doing things our teachers could only wish they had the abilities to do. Didn’t matter, though.”
“How’s that?” asks Brice.
“None of us uses the bug up to its potential, not like in the rumors you hear.”
“People say it makes you just like a Gray,” says Brice. “You can see gravity, talk telepathically. You stop being a me and start being an us.”
“It’s not like that.” It’s nothing like that for me. “Most of us develop one or two bug-related talents. As for me, I became really good at manipulating the Grays’ tech, because all of their control systems use grav switches and organic grav-sensitive circuits. I won most of the games in school where manipulation of the real world was the goal.”
“You can just move stuff around?” I can’t tell whether Brice is awed or vindicated. “Like telekinesis?”
“No,” I answer. “Nothing like that. I can’t pick up a rock with my mind. If it’s built on Gray technology—grav lifts, these suits, our ships—then yes. They all run on circuits that can be manipulated by grav fields. On the micro level, I can influence a grav field, that’s how grav switches work. I guess that’s kinda like telekinesis.”
“Sounds exactly like it,” argues Brice. “They say Grays can do that with anything.”
“I’ve heard that, too, yet I’ve never seen it for real. So I don’t know. On the other hand, if you slap enough grav plates and organic control circuits on something, I can control it, no matter what it is.”
Brice turns curious. “Is that what you had in the bug-head school, special toys or something? Balls with grav plates and grav switches built in?”
“Yeah. All kinds of stuff like that.”
“Learn something new every day,” muses Brice. “What about telepathy? The Trogs use their bugs for that. Why can’t you?”
“Probably because I’ve spent all of my life trying to hide what I’m thinking from the Grays. I repress it.”
“Secrets?” asks Brice. “So much masturbating you were embarrassed?
We both laugh.
“Hate,” I tell him. “I’ve always wanted to kill them.”
“Don’t we all.” Brice deduces something. “So that’s how it is with you spaghetti-heads, then? You’re all so busy trying to hide your contempt for the Grays, the telepathic part of your abilities never fully develops.”
“I think you’re right,” I answer. “Except for Phil.”
“Phil?” Brice can’t believe it. Doesn’t want to.
“Not only can he read grav fields better than anybody I’ve ever met, he reads other people’s thoughts better than anyone.”
“Everybody’s thoughts?” asks Brice.
I guess maybe Brice has entertained some violent images concerning Phil’s corpse. Then, the question makes me wonder. I honestly don’t know. “I’m pretty sure just other bug-heads and Grays. Though, not really Grays, they’re hard to read. It takes a lot of effort, even for Phil. However, for us other kids in school,” I shake my head, “we used to play cards with him, and he always won. Always. You couldn’t play chess with him, because he always knew what you were up to.”
“Just like the Trogs,” says Brice. “When they go to war.”
“Yeah.”
“What I don’t get then,” says Brice, “is Phil. Does he like the Grays? Did his telepathic abilities grow because he didn’t have anything to hide?”
“I haven’t thought about these kinds of questions in a long time,” I admit. “I don’t know about the development of his powers, but I can tell you for sure, he doesn’t like Grays.”
“So as obnoxious as he is,” this thought saddens Brice, “he’s talented.”
“That’s why I picked him for my crew. That, and he and I have been friends since we started school.”
“Well, too bad Phil isn’t here now.” Brice takes a long scan around us. “He’d probably sense those Trogs out there. He could tell us when they’re coming.”
I agree. “Getting back to what the Trogs are up to, what should we expect?”
“They’re out there concentrating their forces. “ Brice points in several directions, like he knows exactly where they are. “It’s hard with all the shit in the air. It’ll take them a while. When they finally get it together, they’ll swarm us in overwhelming numbers, from all directions at once. That’s pretty much the tactic.”
“If they’re coming from all directions, then why guard three? Why not just watch one corner of the hangar?”
“I get things wrong just like anybody else. Why not be careful if you can afford it?”
Chapter 21
Blair raises me on the comm, “Kane, are you there?”
Waiting by the phone. “Yup.”
“We have seventeen soldiers down in the control center and—”
“The control center?” It sounds like a pretentious name to me. “Tarlow’s closet?”
“No. We moved to the station’s main control center?”
I don’t know what to say. I think Blair has made a fatal mistake. But it’s Blair, so I can’t just tell her that bluntly. “Do you think you’ll be discovered?”
Blair responds to my hesitation with an explanation instead of anger. “Tarlow says the Trogs never come in here. Radios, computers, video screens, Trogs and Grays don’t have this kind of tech. They don’t know how to use it, and don’t have any interest in learning about it.”
I don’t agree. My bet is there’s an educated class of Trog scientists somewhere that would love to get their big clumsy hands on our technology. Or the Grays truly are running this intra-galactic sideshow—big assumptions on them not having come from too far away. Which means they’ll steal for themselves any tech they can develop an understanding of and can use to repress their lessers. Just because the current Gray management of earth doesn’t appreciate our electronic toys doesn’t mean this new bunch won’t see the potential. I sum all that mental jabber up with, “I don’t think their disinterest will last.”
“It’ll last for as long as we need.” Blair finds it easy to be certain.
There’s no point in arguing. “What level is the command center on?”
“Three,” she says, “Same level as Tarlow’s closet.”
“How are you set for Trogs down there?”
“The sublevels are mostly empty.” She sounds like she’s distracted by something else. “Eighteen appear to be stationed on sub nine guarding the reservoir pens.”
“Where the prisoners are being held?” I confirm.
“Yes,” she tells me. “Nearly a hundred Trogs are on su
b seven.”
“Over hundred down in the sublevels with us?” I was becoming spoiled by numbers that measured only by the dozen. “Is that where the Grays are, down on sub seven?”
“Yes. That’s right,” Blair confirms. “Tarlow tells me there’s a rec room down there with enough sunlamps in the ceiling to make it feel like a Saharan summer, earth g, and a lap pool. If you haven’t seen it on the map, it’s huge. From the glare on the cameras, it looks like the Grays set the lamps’ intensity to match wherever they came from. Bright as hell. They like to bask. You know that, right?”
“That they like to sunbathe?” How could I not know that? On clear days back home, the Gray-stink-twig killing my wife pesters her to take him out on the back porch to lie in the sun. The high elevation and intense sunshine are reasons the Grays chose Breck when they first arrived on earth. “Do they stay in there all the time?”
“Tarlow says they haven’t left since they took over the station. They run this place from there.”
Still an assumption, a likely assumption, yet maybe I’m being silently argumentative. “And the Trogs who guard them.”
“They stay mostly in a lobby area open to the hall with the lights turned dim.”
I realize I’m gathering info for an assault my troops will have to make. The Grays are the key to controlling this asteroid. They’ll need to die. I suspect the Trogs will fall into disarray with their Gray leadership dead. I’m getting ahead of myself.
“Some,” says Blair. “The number varies. They come in and out of the lobby on no particular schedule.”
“Ghost Trogs?” I need to know if any are down there. They’re the most dangerous kind.
“Six inside,” she answers. “They go in with the Grays from time to time. None outside. What are you thinking?”
“Nothing yet.” I peer into the hangar’s obscuring dust, looking for Trogs. “I’m learning what I can. We’re in a waiting game up here. Brice is sure the Trogs are massing for an assault outside. Are the twenty-two still waiting for us inside the airlock?”
“They haven’t left.”
“So, seventeen.” I’m talking about our troops down in the control center. I’d hoped for more.
Blair hears the disappointment in my voice. “Another twenty, at least, are in the halls on their way here. I have a handful in airlock six, and it looks like two more at airlock three.”
“Oh, that is good.”
“It’s better than good.”
“How so?”
“The warehouse where the prisoners were held wasn’t damaged during the raid.”
“How do you know?” I ask. “Did Tarlow tap into the cameras?”
“No cameras in the warehouse are active.” Blair sounds a little smug about it, which makes no sense to me. “A few of the soldiers down here didn’t come out of the warehouse until after the bombardment finished. They said somebody was ferrying helmets in and telling them to find their way to airlocks leading to the subterranean levels.”
Brice elbows me. “Gossip time is over, buddy.”
“Gotta go, Blair. The show is starting.” I reset my comm. Now I’m only listening on the channel with Brice and my new squad. It’s all I’m going to have attention for.
Chapter 22
“The Trogs are here,” it’s one of our female volunteers, Graham.
“Same on this side,” says a guy named Marshall.
“Circle the wagons,” Brice tells them all.
My railgun is up, pointed at the stairwell. I expect the Trogs from sub one will be coming out to join the attacking horde, unless they’re only down there to block our escape.
One of the troops comes flying through the hangar two meters off the ground, rounding a corner and zipping toward us.
“Slow down,” Brice advises.
She manipulates the grav control on her d-pad and clumsily reduces her speed as she collides with a hoist framework.
I hear her grunt over the comm, and it sounds like she’s hurt.
“Graham,” Brice asks, wearing his battle calm now, “you okay?”
“Bruises. That’s it.” She’s embarrassed.
The other two troops fly toward our position.
“Fliers?” I ask, cutting a glance at Brice. “Is it luck that our volunteers have grav skills good enough to get off the ground?”
He shakes his head as he scans for targets with his weapon. “You ask the right questions, you get the right answers. Then you volun-tell ‘em what they’re going to do.” He glances at me to gauge my reaction.
I focus down my barrel. I’m not judging.
“I gave them a chance to back out.” He chuckles. “You earned a reputation for what you did on those Trog cruisers. They’d all have stayed if I’d let them.”
I guess my reputation doesn’t carry with it the mortality rate of the people who’ve followed me into battle.
I see a haze of blue, coloring the dust in the distance, between two machines.
Brice aims his weapon at the blue glow and fires a burst of red-hot rounds that deflect and ricochet. “They’re maxing power to their chest plates.”
That shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s fired more than a few rounds at a Trog.
Brice shoots again and then thumbs behind him. “You, Graham, and Marshall take that half of the warehouse. Wilkes, you’re with me.”
I spin around and look past a disassembled grav lift, searching for the blue glow that’ll mark the presence of the horde.
Graham fires first, working the bolt-action to chamber another round so quickly her hands are a blur. She sends three more rounds downrange in as many seconds. They all deflect.
Marshall fires in another direction, sporadic and slow.
“We just want to delay them,” Brice reminds us. “Don’t waste too much A and H.” He’s talking about ammunition and hydrogen in our reactors’ fuel cells.
I fire full-auto, not a short burst, and not a sweep across the diffused glow of blue disruptors—at a single point. Rounds skew away from my target in every direction until my deadly red streaks overwhelm a Trog I still can’t see. I’m rewarded as my rounds stop flying wildly away and disappear into the mass. The slugs are deflecting into the torsos, arms, and legs as the Trogs’ combined field falls into disarray.
As quickly as I can, I trade out an empty magazine and start to fire in short bursts. No more full-auto. We can’t kill all of these Trogs, even if we did have an unlimited supply of ammo and H. We need to drag this battle out for as many seconds as we can.
Chapter 23
Every dusty gap is glowing a blue that’s increasingly brighter, closer.
The ill-defined profiles of Trogs are visible, shaking their weapons, shoving and inching toward us.
“They’re going to charge,” explains Brice. “Everybody down. It’s time to blow the C4.”
I duck behind a pile of looped steel tracks that look like they came off a giant earthmoving machine.
“Fire in the hole!” shouts Brice.
I can’t help but think, “There’s no hole.”
The ground shakes.
No sound, of course.
Waves of shrapnel from every direction tear through the hangar above us, each pushing a hazy blast wave of dust particles, gravel, and the expanding gases from the C4’s detonation. I feel hundreds of impacts hammer the stack of heavy tracks I’m leaning against.
Trogs’ body parts spin through the slurry.
Gales of red gas—vaporized blood—diffuse through the dust, staining it in shades of brown.
“Max grav!” yells Brice. “On me!” He flies off the hangar floor and zips toward the hole in the ceiling we’ve designated as our escape route.
Wilkes and Graham are instantly in the air, tentatively following Brice’s path.
I lift off slowly, looking to make sure Marshall is coming. He’s not in the spot where he was concealed as the shooting started. I know he didn’t take off with the others. I can’t delay. I’m in danger with each
second I drift slowly upward. A Trog with his senses not diminished by the blasts could be sighting a railgun on me.
I cast my eyes about, searching.
I spot orange below, drifting. It’s Marshall. His body is bent unnaturally, faceplate cracked. His suit is outgassing through a handful of holes, and his body is off the floor, twisting from the jets of escaping air.
His face looks surprised, insulted, uncertain. Not dead.
I stop my ascent.
Do I help?
I diagnose from a distance of four meters.
Marshall’s eyes catch mine, pleading for a hand.
If I try to help, at best, I’ll prolong his suffering, and I might spend my life for the effort.
Callous and quick, I run the math. It adds up to ‘Sorry, brother. You’re dead.’
Trogs are starting to move on the ground in every direction. Many wounded. Plenty are shell-shocked. The distraction the C4 charges earned us is evaporating quickly.
I glance toward the hole through the roof. Brice, Wilkes, and Graham are out of sight. I amp up my grav and arc after them as red-hot railgun slugs tear through the suspended dust around me.
I misjudge my speed and bounce into the side of the tunnel through the slag piled on the roof. I pinball into open space over the hangar, spinning and fighting to orient myself upright. My concentration is on Marshall and his wounds, rather than flying.
“Kane,” calls Brice. “Over here.”
Like that expression means anything over the radio. I look around.
“Other way,” Graham shouts.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” demands Brice.
I spot them, through the haze of dust and blast particles. If they’d gone another ten meters farther from the hole, they’d be invisible to me.
“Hurry,” Brice orders, his voice turning to concern. “Marshall?”
“Hit.” I accelerate toward them.
Wilkes is calling to Marshall over the comm.
In a flash, I’m among the three of them, setting my feet on the roof. “Marshall won’t make it.” I shake my head. “Not more than a few moments.”
