by Kyle Noe
“With all due respect, General, if you ever threaten me again, we will have words. Just you and me.”
A single bead of sweat formed on General Aames’s forehead. His left eye quivered, boring into Quinn. “I can’t wait for that opportunity, Sergeant, but in the meantime, get yourself and your people ready because you’re going back down to Earth at eight-hundred hours.”
“What is it this time? Another smash and grab op?”
The General shook his head. “This time it’s search and destroy. We’ve located a nest of guerrillas, a real snake pit in a place called Shiloh. The Potentate wants them liquidated.”
Quinn’s mouth went dry. “Women and children, sir?”
The General held her gaze. “Possibly.”
Quinn stiffened. “Haven’t we been through this before? Marines don’t murder innocent people.”
General Aames whipped out a pistol and placed it against her temple, spitting out the words. “You’ll do as you’re ordered, or I will cross you over right now, you hear me? And after that’s done, I will do everything in my power to find your daughter and have her brought here for my own pleasure. Oh, the things I’ve got planned for her, Quinn…”
Quinn’s face flushed. Her fists clenched so hard that her nails nearly broke the flesh in the palms of her hands. It was only by some Herculean effort that she didn’t punch Aames in his nose.
General Aames tapped Quinn on the nose with his gun. “Do you copy me, Sergeant?”
Quinn wanted to gut the General. She wanted to strike out like a snake and rip the meat from his neck and taste his blood, but instead, she slowly nodded.
General Aames lowered the gun. “Good. Now get the fuck out of here.”
BOLTING FROM THE ROOM, Quinn wore a dark expression as she breezed through the network of inner corridors and pathways that lay at the center of the command ship. Her mind reeled at the thought of having to go back to Earth and do something more horrible than she already had. But what? Killing fighters who could live if they were to submit was one thing, but killing innocents who were willing to lay down their arms, that was altogether different.
Part of her wanted to believe that nothing of the sort would take place, but given recent developments, including Harlan’s rebellion and theft of the glider, maybe the aliens wanted to make an example out of someone. And how the hell had Harlan been able to steal the glider? Her thoughts inevitably drifted back to Cody and everything suddenly made sense. Cody was a scientist and scientists tended to test their theories before implementing them.
It was the safest way to protect the experiment. But he wouldn’t have done it, would he? He wouldn’t have risked lives just to test a theory? A hypothesis. Doubt gnawed at her and she spun and ran toward the lab.
19
COYOTES
Samantha lay cocooned in a sleeping bag as the trucks motored out into the open desert. She watched the sun sink over the rugged and beautiful land, the trucks blistering past dry washes and banks of gravel and jagged hillsides of quartz studded periodically by creosote bushes. On more than one occasion they passed stragglers, refugees beating a hasty retreat from even the most insignificant outposts of civilization. Sam saw one young man, only a few years older than her, seated on the side of the road with all his worldly possessions beside him. And the strangest thing was that a pack of shivering coyotes, their ribs pressing against flesh-starved bellies, were seated next to him. The young man’s eyes met hers, but did not cut away, and Sam saw no fear there. She reckoned neither the young man nor the coyotes had the energy or inclination to do harm to the other. There were too many other terrible things to worry about.
They drove on, the land hot and desiccated as if the Syndicate had sucked up every ounce of water. At one point, in the middle of the night, they cut through a dust storm that was so dense Sam could no longer see Eli even though he was seated only a few feet away. He crawled next to her and held up a tube of lip gloss that he advised she daub on the inside of her nose to block the dust from infiltrating her nostrils.
The next morning, covered in a sheen of fine, obsidian dust, the trucks came to a stop. Sam groggily looked up to see a section of flatlands behind a set of massive, iron gates that were pinned with the words Francis E. Warren Air Force Base.
Hawkins looked back at her and smiled. “Welcome to Shiloh.”
The trucks drove through the gates and beyond a gate house. They coasted past a smattering of low-slung, government-style buildings, barracks, and warehouses. Sam was shocked to see that everything looked to be in good order. Sure, there were a few abandoned cars and piles of discarded personal belongings, but no evidence of wholesale slaughter. No bodies, no carbonized wreckage, no bomb-gouged streets of bullet-pocked walls.
Eli looked out and squinted. “Looks like they escaped the Apocalypse.”
“Who?” Sam asked.
Eli glanced at her. “Come again?”
Sam swept her hands. “There’s nobody here. I mean, check it. The place is deserted.”
Hawkins chuckled. “There are exactly seven-hundred and eighty-five souls inhabiting this city.”
“Prove it,” Sam said.
Hawkins pounded on the top of the truck, and it ground to a stop. He hopped off the truck and moved across a section of greenery. Eli helped Sam down.
“How you holding up, kiddo?” he asked.
“Maintaining,” she replied.
They followed Hawkins until he’d stopped over what looked like a commercial-size manhole cover that was lying in the middle of the grass. He raised his boot and brought it down on the metal, over and over. There were a few moments of silence and then came the sound of hidden levers engaging. Metal groaned under the ground, and the top of the steel circle was thrown back. A bearded man was visible on a staircase down in the ground, holding a machine-gun.
The bearded man aimed at Hawkins. “You look like shit, Hawkins.”
“I feel twice as bad.”
Hawkins pointed back. “The road a ways back was a little rough. We experienced a few – what’s the word, Sam?
Sam looked up. “Disasters.”
Hawkins smiled. “Incidents… we had a few incidents getting here.”
The bearded man climbed out of the hole in the ground. “You brought some visitors.”
Hawkins nodded, bobbed his head at Sam and Eli. “They carry their own weight. The girl there, her mother was a Marine.”
“Is a Marine,” Sam said, correcting Hawkins.
The bearded man lowered his gun. “Name’s Abe Comerford.”
Handshakes were exchanged, and Comerford noted the way that Eli kept his eyes peeled on the skies.
“You can relax, friend,” Comerford said. “You’re safe now.”
Eli nodded nervously. “No offense, Mister Abe, but seeing that I have firsthand knowledge of the aliens kicking the bitter piss out of anything they care to, how come they haven’t done the same to you?”
Comerford grinned and pointed at the ground. “Follow me down to the world’s largest man cave, and all will be revealed.”
SAM GRABBED onto a section of metal rungs that had been welded onto the sides of what was a colossal metal tube that dropped straight down into the hard, Wyoming ground.
The metal stairs ended at a landing that revealed several circular tunnels that were six feet tall by six feet wide. Comerford set off down into a tunnel, moving through the tremulous overhead lighting. He strode with purpose, moving left then right as if he’d traveled the same path a thousand times.
Sam took in the maze of pipes overhead, exposed hoses, and gears. The tunnel made Sam feel claustrophobic to the point she thought she might faint for a moment, but then her anxiety ended at a heavy metal door.
Comerford turned and looked back. “Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome you to Shiloh.”
“Why’d you choose that name?” Sam asked.
Comerford smiled. “Because it rhymes with silo.”
He turned back and grabbed a handle on t
he door, teeth gritted as he heaved the door open.
“This used to be a former Atlas missile silo,” Comerford said. He pointed at the walls. “The walls are nine feet of hardened ballistic cement and able to withstand a direct nuclear strike. It easily houses all ninety-five of us.”
Comerford pressed his bulk against the door, shutting it. “The door’s made of titanium, and the structure itself can withstand winds of five hundred miles per hour.”
He gestured for them to follow and they did, the procession moving onto a catwalk that curled down farther into the ground. The catwalk led to an oversized space where colossal tanks of liquid were visible. “We’ve got our own buried electrical sources and a redundant water supply with a seventy-five thousand gallon reserve tank,” Comerford said, pointing at the tanks. “We’ve also got a nifty little hydroponic and aquaculture setup where our waste is processed into feed for Tilapia that help provide nutrients for food we grow.”
They continued on, moving past resistance fighters practicing drills, field-stripping weapons, or sorting ammunition. Farther along, they passed sleeping quarters, a mess hall, classrooms filled with children, a small library, gym, a general store, and even a movie theater. Sam poked her head in and saw several people watching an old sci-fi movie where soldiers were kicking the holy hell out of a group of nasty-looking aliens. She smiled.
The group slipped down another corridor with intricately detailed artwork on the walls, ultra-realistic scenes of the outside, “simulated view” windows which Sam reckoned were meant to provide some semblance of normalcy.
She watched Comerford hook a right and stop at another door. This door also came open, and Comerford held up a hand. “This is as far as we go,” he said.
At first, all Sam could see were electronic consoles, banks of electronic equipment situated around chairs. A meld of oldschool flip switches and the latest computer tablets. A command and control space of some kind.
But beyond this was what looked like an enormous metal cigar that stood nearly twenty-feet high. She instantly knew that this was no ordinary weapon. She could tell this from the markings on its exterior and the machinery that it was tethered to, and from the way the thing just seemed to stand there, daring for somebody to approach it. Her eyes raked the missile’s shimmering sections, its missile guidance system, motors, explosive kit, lengths of conduit, and warhead.
Comerford pointed at the rocket. “That’s why the Scuds don’t bother us.”
Eli scratched his head. “You mean they’re… scared?”
Comerford took this in. “I was a cop in Des Moines before the world turned over. Some homicide, but mostly robbery. Crimes against persons and property and the like. Way I see it, our alien friends are not unlike a group of high-class thieves. They have come to steal something we have, but they don’t wanna bust the joint up in the process. They know if they poke their noses around in here, we’ve got the ability to bring hell down on them.”
“Mutually assured destruction,” Eli said, to himself.
“Worked during the Cold War,” Comerford nodded, closing the door, gesturing for everyone to move back.
They moved back down a narrow corridor and Comerford pointed to a green metal door off to one side. He gestured to Eli and Samantha.
“Make yourselves comfortable.”
“And in the meantime, you’ll be doing what?” Eli asked.
Comerford smiled warmly. “I’m going to get someone who’s been dying to see you.”
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Samantha and Eli were lounging in what passed for a recreation room. Sam was sprawled on a sofa, reading some books while Eli fiddled with a TV that showed images of some long-forgotten nature show. Unable to change the images to anything else, Eli plopped down on the sofa.
“How you doing?”
“About the same as when you asked me before.”
He noticed her right hand was shaking again. “Little nervous?”
She nodded.
“How come?” he asked.
“For starters, we’re literally a hundred feet away from something that can destroy all life as we know it,” she replied.
“Oh, yeah, the missile,” he said, trailing off.
He leaned back, taking in the bleached walls and the metal floors. It was like they were cocooned in a hospital room.
Eli cracked his knuckles, then shot her a look. “You buy what that guy was saying?”
“About the aliens being afraid?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Sam thought about this. “If you have the ability to travel across the universe, you think you’d be worried about a few missiles?”
“Maybe,” Eli said.
Sam nodded. “Yeah, maybe. Or maybe it’s something else.”
“Like what?”
“Like I don’t know, and I’m a little cranky, Eli.”
Sam eased back and rested her head against Eli’s shoulder. He paused, then made space so she could scrunch up next to him. The pair sat there in silence, watching the nature show on the TV.
There was a knock at the door and Samantha and Eli looked up. Comerford was there and he was flanked by somebody else. Samantha studied the man’s features and thought she’d seen him once upon a time. The man strode forward. He had his hands behind his back and suddenly he brought them around and Samantha gasped. He was holding her toy robot, the one named Zeus.
“But h-how?” she stammered.
The man smiled. “Detwyler asked that I give it back to you.”
“Who are you?” she replied, taking the robot in her hands.
The man smiled. “My name’s Giovanni, Samantha. I’m a friend of your mother.”
20
THE ESCAPE
Q uinn powered through the door on the lab, surprising Cody.
Cody pivoted and threw up his hands. “Jeez. Don’t you knock anymore?”
Quinn circled Cody. “I want answers, buster.”
He mustered a smile. “Helps if I know the questions.”
“How the hell did Harlan and the other jarheads steal that glider?”
He shrugged, and she stopped and squinted. “We both know he wasn’t smart enough to do it on his own.”
“Maybe he learned up on flying alien ships.”
She jabbed a finger at him. “I’ll give you three seconds to come clean. One—”
She smacked him in the face.
“Hey! What the hell happened to three!?” Cody shouted, rubbing his face.
“I was never very good at math,” Quinn said, her tone becoming colder. “That’s why I joined the Corps.”
Cody massaged his red cheek. “Alright, okay, so what if I did help them?”
“Why the hell would you have done that?!”
“Because I’m a scientist. I’m curious. I had to know.”
“Know what?”
He tapped his boot on the metal floor. “Whether I could circumvent the code that controls the gliders and the other assault craft.”
“It didn’t work out, did it?” she said, a bit of anger in her voice.
“Making mistakes is sometimes the only way you learn, Quinn.”
“Tell that to the Marines that died.”
“They knew the risks. They came to me, I didn’t go to them.”
She thought about this, stewing, pissed at Cody, but realizing Harlan was a loose cannon.
“Tell me what they should’ve done,” she said.
“Come again?”
She leaned into him. “What mistake did they make?”
“Aside from getting killed?”
“You want another smack?” she asked, her flattened hand in the air, ready to strike.
He shook his head. “Not on my face, no.”
Cody motioned for Quinn to follow. They moved to the far window where Cody gestured outside. Beyond the command and other ships was Earth.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Cody asked.
“Just looks like more space.”
&nbs
p; “That’s because you’ve got no eyes.” Cody pointed. “There are three regions of space you need to become familiar with, Sergeant. Geostationary orbit, Medium Earth Orbit, and Low Earth Orbit. Right now, we’re in MEO, Medium Earth Orbit, smack dab in the middle.”
“Tell me why I should care,” she replied.
“Because it’s like being in the slow lane on the highway. In order to blast off, you’ve gotta get into Low Earth Orbit.”
“The fast lane?”
Cody smiled and nodded. “I told Harlan and the others to make a break for it if they managed to get off the ship. Just turn on the thrusters and head for home.”
“And if they’d done that?”
“They would’ve been sucked down into Earth’s upper atmosphere, BOOM!, like driving a muscle car on steroids.”
“So, if somebody did that, they’d have a chance?”
He nodded. “I think they would’ve made it to terra firma before the bad guys caught them, yeah.”
Quinn turned from the window, deep in contemplation. “You’re sure that would’ve worked?”
“I can’t be absolutely certain, but yes, I believe so,” Cody replied.
Quinn struck off toward the last temporal totem that was hidden inside the Syndicate scanner.
“You’re going to have to download the last message,” she said.
“Hello, are you forgetting about the bomb inside?”
She shook her head, running her fingers over the totem’s smooth exterior. “We’re going to use the bomb as a distraction.”
“To do what?”
She looked up. “To steal another Syndicate ship.”
“Is that a joke?”
“Am I smiling?” she asked, stone-faced. She moved over and began rummaging through the cabinets where Cody kept his supplies and drugs.
“Hey, that’s my good stuff!” Cody complained.
Quinn ignored him, pulling out containers filled with drugs.
“We’re going to need all of it. As much of the Lazarus drug as you’ve got.”
