by Kyle Noe
“An innovator?” Mackie whispered in response.
Giovanni shook his head. “Nope.”
“A little cray cray?” Mackie said with a smirk.
Giovanni nodded.
“Relax. Hugo’s good people. From what I hear, he’s only lost, like forty percent of his people conducting bait and switch operations out here.”
“You’re not helping your cause, Mackie.”
Mackie grinned and moved down through the bunker. Giovanni followed, reckoning that the space was constructed from several shipping containers wedged together, hidden under the ground and covered with ballistic cement, the entire construct connected via a series of six-foot aluminum pipes.
The group slithered through the pipes into the far end of the bunker complex where they came upon a section of a turret from a Syndicate drone. Giovanni had never seen one so close. He moved around it, inspecting the material it was made from, its cannon, its chain guns.
“How?” he said, turning back.
Hugo smiled. “We baited the fucker out near an arroyo on the other side of the ranch. Caught one of the Scud ‘bots after we shot down a glider. Seems like they’re not unlike us. They don’t like leaving their soldiers behind, so we took the one we caught, and we staked him up out in the desert. They sent down another glider and some drones, and we caught ‘em in a wicked crossfire. Blasted that one down and hacked off its top and brung it back here like a trophy.”
“How come they haven’t come back for it?” Giovanni asked.
Hugo held up a finger. “Well, see, that’s kinda the best part.” He moved over and reached into a hole at the side of the turret and pulled out what looked like a joystick tethered to a length of metal conduit. On top of the joystick was a button that still blinked red.
Hugo pointed to the button. “They’ve got tracking devices in all of their gear. You push that button, and they will come. How do you think we’re able to ambush them all the time?”
Mackie slapped the palms of his hands together. “Yeah, that’s super cool, Hugo, but if it’s all the same, we’ll be taking the fuel and rolling out.”
Hugo pushed the red button down.
Mackie’s jaw dropped. “Hugo, what are you doing here?”
Hugo grinned darkly. “Ain’t it obvious? I’m making you and your people earn their keep. Now follow me topside so can you pay your bill.”
Hugo and his men turned and scurried back toward the entrance as Giovanni tossed looks to Mackie and Xan.
Mackie smiled sheepishly. “It’s not what you think, Giovanni.”
“The only thing I think is that we’re about to be confronted by a superior force with significantly better firepower. Am I right?
“Sort of,” Mackie replied.
“Then it’s exactly what I think.”
Xan shook her head. “The time for talking is over, Giovanni. Scalpels lose their edge eventually, but hammers never go out of style.”
“Did that make sense when you said it?”
Xan scowled. “Fuck you.”
GIOVANNI AND MACKIE carried the fuel out of the bunker as Xan grabbed an alien rifle from inside and covered them. The wind was howling, drifting down from the mountains and whipping up the dust. Giovanni spotted strange lights far overhead. “We need to move! Now!” The trio pushed the barrels of fuel across the field, and that’s when they heard it. The metallic shriek coming from somewhere far above them.
“They’re coming!” Xan screamed.
Reaching the Gurkha, they loaded the fuel inside. They turned back to see Hugo and his men duck into holes that had been dug into the ground.
“That is fucking genius!” Xan shouted. “They’ll never see them when they come down!”
“Yeah, which means they’ll see us!” Giovanni shouted. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”
“I’m staying and fighting!” Xan screamed, turning and running across the field. “Xan!” Mackie shouted.
Giovanni reached into the Gurkha and grabbed two rifles. He tossed one to Mackie, and in seconds, the pair were bounding across the field, following Xan, as the alien glider became visible.
The glider streaked down and made a pass over the field. Giovanni watched it soar out over the mountains and then turn. Giovanni and Mackie were nearly on Xan who’d taken a knee and was aiming her rifle at the sky.
“Are you insane?!” Giovanni screamed.
“I’m tired of waiting around for the right moment. The moment is when we make it!” she shouted back. “No more defense when we should be taking it to these bastards!”
Giovanni dropped beside her. “This is not the time!”
She readied her gun as the glider approached down over the valley. “It never is with you!”
“We have to wait?!”
She shook her head, a strange smile gripping her face. “It’s already in the wind, Giovanni. One day you’ll thank me.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Giovanni asked.
“I already lit the fuse! There’s a bomb going back with the Marines, planted inside that silver thing.”
He knocked the rifle from her and grabbed her jacket. “They’ll all be killed!”
She threw an elbow, catching him in the cheek, knocking him back. “Worth it. They’re traitors anyway.”
Giovanni turned to Mackie and shouted, “Get the HUD! We need to let Quinn and the others know about the bomb!”
Xan shook her head, smirking. “It’s no use. I disabled the HUD.”
Giovanni had malice in his eyes. He looked like he’d strike down Xan at any moment,
but she suddenly turned and opened fire on the glider. Rounds from her weapon illuminated the darkened field, and then the glider responded. It was like being in the middle of an explosion, so many pieces of ordnance landed on the field. Rockets ripped into the ground, trenching the field as the glider dropped lower.
Giovanni shielded his face from the explosive debris, the wind, and the downdraft from the approaching alien craft.
He had no choice, but to fire his rifle. Mackie was at his side, the wind swirling as Giovanni waited for death and then—
WHUNK!
Hugo and his men emerged from the duck holes and joined the battle. Giovanni watched as one of Hugo’s men fired a Hafnium rocket that spiraled up and detonated against the rear of the alien attack ship.
The glider shunted away from the field, trailing a long, billowing cloud of smoke. Another rocket was fired, but this time, the glider loosed a flurry of anti-missile munitions, orange balls of flame that intercepted the rocket, disabling it. Still, the aliens had seen enough because the glider arced up and vanished into a bank of clouds.
Hugo strode across the field, emptying his revolver into the sky. He held up his gun, and his men climbed from their holes, hooting and hollering.
“Taking the fight to the fucking enemy!” Hugo roared. He turned to Giovanni. “You know what we just did?”
Giovanni didn’t respond, and Hugo blew some smoke from his revolver’s barrel. “We just sent a message. That we will not go quietly into the goddamn night.”
Hugo’s men cheered as Giovanni gathered himself up and advanced on Xan.
“Did you see that?” she said, jabbing a finger at the sky. “That was some real—”
But Giovanni raised his rifle and aimed, cutting her off.
“If you ever go behind my back again, I will shoot you dead,” he hissed.
She glowered at him. “You can sure as shit try.”
“Get in the goddamn truck, Xan.”
“And if I refuse?”
“They’re gonna be adding a stone,” Giovanni replied, waving his rifle at the large stones out in the middle of the field, the ones that signaled burial markers for the fallen.
Begrudgingly, Xan followed them into the truck. Giovanni watched her climb into the rear of the truck and stare at him.
“I did the right thing,” she said.
“For all the goddamn wrong reasons. You
might’ve gotten members of our group killed.”
“There are no more groups, Giovanni. Only individuals.”
“Bullshit. There are also friends and families,” he countered.
“Is that what we are?” she snorted.
“I used to think so.”
The Gurkha was thrown into gear and drove off.
THE GURKHA DROVE desert roads bracketed by peaked mountains. Giovanni stared outside, shocked by how unusually brilliant the stars seemed. That was perhaps the only benefit to the Syndicate’s invasion. With commerce and heavy industry shuttered across the country and the globe, there was very little pollution. The air was fresher and the sky darker and the calls of the creatures somehow more vibrant. Giovanni thought that this is what it must have been like before humans began roaming the lands. His eyes rotated back and he caught sight of Xan in the sideview mirror. She was staring at him. He broke gaze and eased his head back, his eyes slowly closing.
Many hours later, Giovanni woke with a start. Dawn was breaking and he leaned forward to see that the Gurkha was parked on the top of a rise. There was a development several miles away, at the bottom of the rise.
“There she is,” Mackie said with a smile. “There’s Shiloh.”
18
THE REVOLT
Q uinn, Cody, and Milo followed Renner, streaking down through the inner corridor of the command ship. Quinn could see Hayden and the other Marines up ahead, standing clear of the Syndicate soldiers who were filtering into the loading bay. Quinn stopped to catch her breath as Hayden approached.
“Sonofabitch lost it,” Hayden said. “Harlan went over the deep end and took ten others with him, and somehow they stole a ship.”
“Where are they?” Quinn asked.
Hayden motioned for her to follow. Quinn was soon standing on the catwalk, listening to the report of rifle fire. She could see one of the drones hovering, taking fire from the Syndicate soldiers.
“They heisted a glider,” Hayden said.
The glider trembled and then roared forward, slipping into the tunnel that led to the outside. Quinn moved laterally, trying to track the glider, but it had already vanished from view. Cheers rose from some of the other Marines as they watched some of their own turn the tables on the aliens.
“How?” Quinn asked, mainly to herself. Then, turning, spotting Cody. “How the hell were they able to do this?”
Cody didn’t respond, so Quinn dashed past him only to see Marin surrounded by a coterie of heavily armed Syndicate soldiers. She smiled upon seeing Quinn. “The Potentate requests the pleasure of your company.”
QUINN and the Marines found the Potentate and General Aames in the rotating observation deck. The Dynamic Tower provided a God’s eye glimpse of the rogue glider with Harlan and the others aboard. General Aames looked up from a tablet that was flashing multi-directional images of the escaping glider. “Are you aware of what’s going on Sergeant?” asked Aames.
“I’ve been made aware that a ship was stolen, sir,” Quinn said.
General Aames glanced at the Potentate, then back to Quinn. “Any idea how it happened?”
She shook her head.
There was a pinging sound before General Aames gestured to a Syndicate technician who tapped keys on a handheld device. The far wall of the room became a screen, and Harlan’s face was visible on it. Several of the Marines gasped, Quinn hardly believing that Harlan had been able to hijack one of the alien ships. Harlan stared into the screen, surrounded by other Marines and prisoners. His eyes jitterbugged and an unhinged smile splashed his face. Quinn remembered seeing an interview on TV many years before with a man who’d been wrongly imprisoned for decades. The man had just been released from prison, and the smile he had was very similar to Harlan’s. It was the smile of somebody tasting freedom for the first time in a very long time.
“Deactivate the fucking implants, Aames,” Harlan said. “Just turn them the fuck off, and nobody gets hurt.”
General Aames stared at Harlan, absolutely no emotion in his face. “Is that a request or a command?”
“It’s a goddamn direct order!” shouted Harlan.
“Which might mean something if you had anything to bargain with, Mister Harlan. But you don’t, you’ve got nothing and we have everything. Besides, we don’t negotiate with terrorists.”
Harlan’s mouth twitched in a grimace, but Quinn could see the look in his eyes, a combination of fear and regret. He’d overplayed his hand, anybody could see that.
“Fuck you,” was all Harlan muttered.
Then the screen went dark, and General Aames looked up as the renegade glider circled back and accelerated. “They’re going to ram the ship!”
Quinn saw the Potentate peripherally. He didn’t speak, but instead flicked his wrist. Quinn watched the glider accelerate toward the command ship and then there was movement on the exterior of the command ship. A battery of rocket launchers swiveled. The Potentate nodded, and the batteries flashed. A horde of missiles with off-center thrusters shot toward the glider. Before Harlan and the rebellious Marines could kamikaze into the command ship, the missiles tore into the glider, obliterating it right before Quinn’s eyes. The hijacked vessel vanished in a fiery plume, fragments from the wreckage drifting past the far window.
Everyone stood in stunned silence and then Milo whispered. “At least they had the balls to do something.”
The Potentate moved toward the Marines and soon towered over them, the visor on his helmet eerily changing hues. “What you just witnessed was most unfortunate, but there can be no other outcome. You must realize that there will be no negotiation with rogue elements,” he continued. “No accord, no agreements. Rebellion is death.”
The Potentate exited the room, leaving General Aames behind, flanked by several dozen Syndicate soldiers.
“You care to explain how the hell a man like Harlan stole one of our ships?” asked General Aames.
Renner nodded. “I have an idea, sir.”
The General stepped forward. “Let’s hear it, Marine.”
“You’re an idiot, and you fucked up. No offense.”
The other Marines howled with laughter. The General was not amused. He motioned to the Syndicate soldiers who moved forward. “Everyone out but Quinn.”
The Marines, despite their worried glances at Quinn, were moved out of the room, leaving Quinn behind with the General who paced, watching the shrapnel from the glider blast pepper the faraway windows.
“Do you share Renner’s sentiments, Sergeant?”
“About you being an idiot or fucking up?”
General Aames wheeled on her. “I’m thinking I can be frank with you here, Quinn. The time for bullshitting is over. I know what you and your people think of me.”
“You couldn’t possibly, sir.”
General Aames’s face flushed. He looked like he wanted to punch Quinn, but then he fortified himself with several gulps of air. He smirked and moved over to the window, looking out at the other ships hovering in space before glancing back at Quinn. “I know how difficult all of this has been on you.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but I don’t believe that.”
“What? You think you’re some kind of snowflake? That you were the first ones taken up? What you don’t know is that the Syndicate was doing that for months before they attacked. Expeditions to Earth, surgical missions where they confronted and kidnapped certain people.”
“You mean… you?”
He nodded. “I was stationed at Fort Meade. We were conducting a situational exercise out in the boonies of Western Maryland when they sucked six of us up. I experienced the same things you have.”
“And yet, somehow, you’ve floated to the top of the food chain,” Quinn said.
“Because I learned a simple rule. The struggle is not the thing.”
Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “If someone punches me, I’m gonna punch back. I mean, that’s just the way I’m hardwired, General.”
“That’s effect
ive when there’s combat, but what happens when it’s time to lay down your arms?”
Quinn stared at him quizzically, and he continued. “Throughout human history, people have been ruled over by empires, Sergeant. Not saying that’s right, but that’s how it’s been. But here’s the rub. No empire can be sustained indefinitely through violence. Didn’t work for the Romans, Chinese, or the British, and it won’t work for the Syndicate.”
“This is an awful long windup, General…”
“Here’s the pitch. At some juncture, the fighting is going to end, it’s inevitable. There’s going to be a need for people to reestablish law and order.”
“What kind of people?”
General Aames eyed her. “People whose mettle is hard-forged. People like you.”
“I’m not going to turn on my own people.”
“Nobody’s saying that has to happen,” General Aames said.
“And yet, that’s how it always seems to go down, sir.”
General Aames sighed. “You could rule at my right hand.”
“What about the Potentate?” she asked.
“It’s best to think of him like an emperor. I’d be the Pilate to his Tiberius, the Cao Cao to his Yuan Shao, the Haldeman to his Nixon. I’d have the power to pull the strings.”
“You’re forgetting one thing, General.”
“What’s that?”
“All of the people you just mentioned were eventually brought down from within. They failed just like all empires eventually do.”
General Aames smiled thinly. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that was some kind of threat.”
“Is that how you took it?”
The General moved over and peered down at Quinn. “And here I was deciding whether to award you a commendation for your actions in the last few missions.”
“Commendations are for the dead.”
The levity disappeared from the General’s face.
“I really hope you’ll see things my way, Quinn. I would hate for something to happen to you.”
