by Sara King
A girlish voice giggled. “Do you always answer your phone like that?”
Joe dropped the tennis shoe, his heartbeat quickening. “Sam?”
“How bad do you want to meet me, Joe?” Her voice had a flirtatious ring to it, like a cheap, mail-order hooker.
Joe hesitated. “That a trick question?”
“No. It’s a warning. You might not like what you see. I’m probably not what you’ve been picturing in your head.” Her voice lowered, sad and seductive at the same time.
“Fuck that,” Joe said. “I want to see you.” He held back all the things he had wanted to say to his brother over the turns, respecting Sam’s wish for privacy.
“Thursday. I’ll be working at the Hungry Kitten in Nevada. Talk to Mindy. She’ll set you up with something.”
“Sure,” Joe said. Then, sensing his brother was about to hang up, he said, “Lookin’ forward to it.”
There was a pause on the other end, then, “Me, too.”
The line went dead before Joe could say any more.
Joe had to fight the impulse to hop on the first flight to Nevada. Instead, he forced himself to put on his other shoe and step outside for a jog.
Two five-foot-tall Ooreiki Peacemakers were waiting for him on his front steps, dressed in Congie black. Their long, tentacle arms were twisted politely in front of them, their huge, sticky brown eyes mournful, their fleshy rows of air-exchanges in their necks flapping as inconspicuously as possible, the way they always did before giving bad news.
Upon seeing him, the brown-skinned Ooreiki flinched. They had obviously been waiting on his steps some time, and yet neither had dredged up the courage to knock.
“Commander Zero?” one of them managed. “The Commander Zero?”
Joe’s heart began to pound, his mind returning to the conversation he had just had with his brother. “What?”
The Ooreiki who had spoken glanced to his partner, who continued to stare at the ground, mute. The first one turned back to Joe. His huge oblong eyes were filled with humble brown apology. “I’m sorry, Commander, but you’ve been re-activated.”
It took Joe a moment for that to register. “On whose order?”
“Prime Overseer Phoenix, sir.”
Joe ground his jaw and twisted his head away. Even retired, Maggie was going to screw with him. “Look, if this is a prank, I’m not falling for it. Phoenix would rather lube up her ass with a plasma grenade than put me back into Planetary Ops. She’s the one who retired me. Just walk your happy asses back to headquarters and tell the Overseer I thought it was very funny and she can go fuck herself.”
“It’s not a hoax, Commander.” The sincerity in the Ooreiki’s sticky eyes was plain. “You…didn’t hear?”
Joe stiffened at the outright fear in the young Ooreiki’s wrinkled brown face. “What happened?”
“The Dhasha declared war, sir.”
Joe’s breath caught. Every Congie knew it was going to happen, and every Congie prayed it wasn’t within their lifetime. “Fuck,” he muttered, his breath leaving him. He thought of all of his friends and groundmates who were going to die. Billions. “How many of them?” he finally asked. If it was just one prince, like last time, perhaps it wouldn’t decimate the Corps.
The Ooreiki that had been speaking glanced again at his partner. The second Ooreiki hadn’t taken its sticky eyes off the ground.
It was the second one who finally spoke. In a whisper, he said, “All of them.”
-END SNEAK PEEK-
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