Freedom's Fire Box Set: The Complete Military Space Opera Series (Books 1-6)

by Bobby Adair

  “Good thing you’re a fan of sarcasm,” says Phil.

  Brice is laughing. “Maybe we killed the wrong one, Kane. I think you’re overmatched.”

  “I need to know where your loyalties lie,” I tell her. “Right now. Tell me.”

  “Or what?” she asks. “You’re going to kill me, too? You’re going to shoot us all?”

  I don’t answer, instead staring at her with all the menace I can put into my eyes, hoping she does the math on the situation pretty quick, decides to quit harassing me, and chooses to cooperate.

  Her eyes settle on the Gray.

  “You’re thinking,” says Phil, “most Grays can’t read human thoughts.”

  “That’s not much of a deduction,” she tells him. “What’s my mother’s maiden name?”

  “Blomqvist,” says Phil like he’s reading it right off her forehead.

  “Shit,” she says.

  “Your loyalties lie with your crew,” Phil tells her. “That’s what you’re going to tell Colonel Kane, yet you’re weighing the risk of telling him that and trying to decide if there’s a good lie you can tell that’ll save them.”

  And finally, Parker doesn’t have anything to say.

  “Even though Colonel Kane is acting like an ass, he doesn’t want to hurt you.” Phil casts a stern glance at me, making sure I’m going to be on the same page whether I like it or not. “We need to protect our mission. We need to know if you’re a threat.”

  “You want to know if I’m going to rat you out for killing Geeslin?”

  “We can make it look like an accident,” I explain. “People die out here every day.”

  “You’re sure he was MSS?” she asks.

  “No doubt,” says Phil. “None at all.”

  “Snitch bastard,” she mutters. “Darcy always said he was. I should have listened.”

  “Wouldn’t have made a difference,” says Phil.

  "We'd have been more careful," she says. "Snitches always end up having somebody hauled off and killed. Never for any good reason, except maybe for a promotion, I guess. The MSS is the lowest of the low.”

  “Yeah,” I agree. “We need to know, will you keep our presence here a secret?”

  “I can forget I ever saw you,” she says, “but what about my people?” She glares at Phil. “You’ll use your little Gray mindreading trick on them, too? What will you do with the liars? Because you know, they’re either going to feel the same way about this as me, or they’re going to lie to you about it.”

  “Industrial accidents,” I tell her.

  “Killing an MSS snitch is one thing,” she tells me, “but killing one of us in cold blood because we don’t believe Geeslin was a snitch, all you’ll do is cause the rest of us to hate you. And then where will you be? Will you kill all of us?”

  “We have to protect the mission,” I tell her.

  “You are as bad as the MSS,” she snorts. “Maybe humans are just as well off being slaves. We’re not capable of managing ourselves as a species.”

  Blair connects on another frequency. “Chikere just called. My contact is coming in.”

  “Go meet the ship,” I tell her. “We’ll handle this.”

  “You should stop arguing with them,” Blair tells me, “and act like one of those commanders I heard about with actual man balls. Kill them all and be done with it.”

  “Blair,” I tell her, “you have your mission. Get to it. And stay out of sight. They haven’t seen you, yet.”

  “Yes, Bossman.”

  Phil chuckles. “Catharsis. Everybody needs it, right?”

  Chapter 8

  Brice comes out from his concealed position to supervise our detainees more closely. He instructs two of them to retrieve Geeslin's two halves. The legs and lower torso have come to a stop fifty meters away against a rocky rise. The upper torso is drifting slowly toward earth, nearly two hundred meters farther.

  Phil and Nicky move down the slope to interrogate the remaining workers one by one. We need to know where their hearts lie before we choose how to proceed with them.

  I put myself at a distance of four or five meters and keep my railgun ready to shred any or all of them should things go sideways.

  When Brice’s pair return with Geeslin’s body portions, he directs them to pack seismic charges into the chest cavity, haul him back over by the rocks, and detonate everything. It’s not a pretty sight, seeing bits of orange suit, a deformed helmet, and a haze of frozen, red crystals dispersing into the void from the spot where a man’s body lay just moments before. At least there’s enough evidence left to corroborate the industrial accident story Parker and her people will tell. If Geeslin was just another worker bee killed on the job, it’s likely the request for a replacement would be the last official mention ever to be made. Being an MSS snitch, anything was possible.

  I comm link to Chikere. “Has Blair departed with her contact yet?”

  “Nope.”

  I ask, “Have you seen anything on your radar we should be worried about?”

  “Nothing unusual,” he says. “As far as I can tell, no one is on to us yet.”

  I comm link to Phil as I glance down at Nicky. “Any danger out there you two can pick up on?”

  “Nothing we’re aware of,” says Phil.

  “You’ve been checking?” I ask.

  “You’re nervous,” says Phil. “You get controlling when you get nervous.”

  “What about them?” I ask, meaning Parker and her four survivors. “Are they solid?”

  “Geeslin was new on their crew,” says Phil. “He’d only been around a few months. No one was close to him.”

  “No hard feelings, then?”

  “Nothing they won’t get over.”

  “They believed it when Parker told them he was an MSS snitch?” I ask.

  “Proving you can read someone’s thoughts isn’t that hard,” says Phil. “Once you’re past that, the rest is easy.”

  “Can they be trusted?”

  “Most people are exactly who they appear to be,” says Phil. “You can’t be suspicious forever, Dylan.”

  I don’t agree, yet don’t trouble myself to say it. Besides, Phil can read it from my mind if he decides he wants to know what I’m thinking.

  “Brice,” I call. “It’s safe for you to come in. I want you and Phil to talk to the crew and get a feel for their thoughts about the war.”

  “I suppose they’re my kind of people,” says Brice.

  “Don’t let your guard down,” I tell him.

  “You know,” says Brice. “I hadn’t even thought about that. Gee wiz. Thanks for the tip, Kane.”

  I sigh.

  “You do this to yourself,” says Phil.

  “Brice was sarcastic before I met him.”

  “I’m still on the line,” he says.

  “I know,” I tell him.

  “What are you going to do while Brice and I talk to the crew?” asks Phil.

  “I’m going to have a word with Parker,” I tell him.

  “Maybe I should hang back and let Phil finish up with this bunch,” says Brice.

  “If they’re relaxed, they’re more likely to open up,” I say. “If they like you, Brice, they’re more likely to join us.”

  “Join us,” asks Phil. “We can’t put them on the ship.”

  “We need them here,” I say. “Them and a few million just like them.”

  "What am I supposed to say to make them want to join us?" asks Brice. "Recruiting was never my thing. I'm a soldier, not a salesman."

  I reach down and tap my d-pad. “Phil, you still have that report you wrote for me, the Gray and Trog history? Give them that. Tell them how you know it’s true. Nicky is proof enough of that. If they don’t care that by choosing not to fight they’ll be condemning all their successors to being bred down into stupid house pets and factory slaves, then there’s nothing that’ll convince them.”

  “That shou
ld work,” agrees Brice.

  "And when they get back to their barracks," I add, "tell them to share that document with everybody they know. Everyone needs to know what's coming. Everyone needs to make a choice."

  “We got this,” says Brice.

  “Stay on your toes, just in case, okay?”

  “That’s never a problem.”

  “Parker,” I call, “you mind if we talk?”

  She comes back over to me.

  Distance isn't necessary when you're having a conversation over the comm. Parker and I could have been standing among the others and opened a private comm and talked all we wanted, but it's hard to break the habits of a lifetime.

  We’re a good twenty paces away from the others when Parker says, “What?”

  “You understand why we had to handle this the way we did, don’t you?”

  “Are you asking me to give you a pass on the guilt you feel about threatening to kill us?”

  I take a long look at Parker as I think about that. She’s a good twenty years older than me. Her eyes are hard, yet not cruel. Like any human still alive, she’s seen the tough side of life. “No,” I admit, as much to myself as her, “I don’t feel any guilt over that at all.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Since you’re a no-bullshit type, I’ll get straight to it. I want to know what the mood is. Does earth have the stomach for more war? And if so, can I recruit you?”

  Chapter 9

  Parker laughs like I just told her the best joke she’s heard in months. But her laugh isn’t dark like Brice’s, and it’s not mean like something I might hear from Blair. And then I stop to wonder, has Blair ever laughed?

  “What are you thinking?” asks Parker. “You’ll Shanghai my crew, and haul us off to fight in the rebel alliance like in some old movie? Blow up the Death Star and save the galaxy?”

  "The solar system is blowing up around us, and everybody thinks they're funny."

  “I don’t think I’m funny,” says Parker. “I’m just trying to get through the day.”

  “Fine.” I look down at my d-pad and start searching for the file Phil sent. “I’m fishing for good people who will pick up a weapon and join the revolution when the time comes.”

  “You’re a romantic,” she guesses.

  “You were pretty straightforward ten minutes ago. I thought you were the no-bullshit type. And now we’re dancing around the words. I’m not trying to sell you on this. If you’re not interested, just say so, and we’ll be done with it.”

  I’m still searching my d-pad, and she asks, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m looking for a report to send you.”

  “Propaganda?” she asks.

  “The real deal,” I tell her. I point at Nicky and Phil. “You know what Phil can do. You ever wonder what a telepathic person could learn from a Gray?”

  “Lies?” she asks.

  “It’s complicated to explain,” I say, “but this Gray can’t lie to Phil.” I find the report, make a link to Parker’s d-pad and send it over. Everything’s in that file. Gray history. Trog history. How we came to be in possession of a Gray and why I believe every word of it is true.”

  Parker downloads a local copy of the file, and when she’s done, she takes a long look at me and says, “You’re that guy, aren’t you?”

  “Kane?” I ask. “That guy?”

  “The MSS major who turned traitor and had all those assault ships blown out of the sky?”

  “Is that the story the MSS sold you?” I ask.

  “You’re him?”

  “I am. But what you need to know is that everything the MSS tells you is bullshit.”

  “Everybody knows that,” she says.

  “Then you have to know that story is a lie.”

  “It’s the only story we heard about the Arizona Massacre.”

  “Whether you want to believe it or not,” I tell her, “I was captaining one of those Arizona Class assault ships that day—”

  “I heard you were a commissar.”

  “I was,” I admit. “We mutinied shortly after takeoff, killed the Korean officers, and led the attack against the Trog cruisers bombing the shipyards. After we destroyed the cruisers, we escaped to join the Free Army."

  “Is that true?” she asks.

  “I can give you the full story with all the details at some point, if that’s what you want to hear, but right now, you can believe me or not. This Arizona Massacre thing they pinned on me was just the MSS scapegoating me for more of their incompetence. I was on the ground in Arizona that day, all those ships sitting out in the open, just asking for the Trogs to bomb them from outer space. We had over a thousand warships there. Even with our inexperience we had enough power to win the war right then and there, but the MSS admirals ruined it. Most of those ships were destroyed before they ever left the ground. The MSS leadership is a bunch of idiots whose only talent was sucking up to their Gray masters. We never should have lost the war with the Trogs.”

  “You like getting on your soapbox,” says Parker.

  “Most of my friends died that day,” I snap. “Of those who lived, most of them died fighting Grays and Trogs out here in space. We’re still trying to win this war for the sake of every human,” I point at the earth, “down there. So forgive me for ranting about it.”

  “We’ve all lost people,” she tells me. “Some of us have lost everyone.”

  “Sorry. I wasn’t challenging you to a pity contest. Every person on earth has suffered at the hands of the Grays and the MSS. These Trogs that invaded, you don’t know this, but they’re a race not that different than us. The Grays enslaved them, too.”

  “That’s what people say,” she says.

  “They’re just a different bunch of Grays than the ones who conquered earth. That’s the worse thing about this whole war, it was never us against the Trogs. It was always Gray against Gray. Trogs and humans are pawns in a Gray power struggle. That’s it.”

  “You may be wasting your time,” says Parker. “To answer your question. I think most people have given up hope. I mean, how many deaths can a person endure before they can’t do it anymore?”

  “You’ve given up?” I ask.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But most people have?” I ask.

  “When the Grays came, I was just starting college,” says Parker. “It was a different world in those days. Life was a valuable thing then, every life. I’d never personally known a person who’d died before that. All of my grandparents were still alive, and even my great-grandmother was still around. When it started, a lot of people were killed in the siege, and a lot starved when the climate turned cold because of all the ash thrown into the upper atmosphere by the railgun strikes. By then, I knew people who’d died, mostly acquaintances, but over time, there were more and more, and they were closer and closer. When everything finally stabilized, and the MSS was running the earth, people were still dying, either through disease and starvation, or from being shipped off for the construction projects. All through it, people tolerated the deaths, because they thought things couldn't get any worse. And then the war with the Trogs came, and now we've lost a whole generation—maybe two. There's nobody left on earth anymore except the very young and very old. It's rare to see people older than fifteen and younger than fifty. Even up here, my crew, we're all over fifty. A few of us are over sixty. And that's not unusual."

  “Where are you going with this?” I ask.

  “The suffering on earth has been worsening for thirty years, but now the war is over, and things are finally becoming better. People don’t have hope, but at least the bleeding has stopped. We’re a defeated people, Kane. That’s what I’m telling you. We’re a hopeless, defeated people. You know what most people on earth believe?”

  “What?”

  “They think we’re the last. They think when the children alive now die out, there’ll be no more humans. This is the end.”r />
  “And you believe that, too?” I ask.

  “My husband died ten years ago. Our daughter and her husband died in the war. My grandbabies starved. I don’t have a stake in it anymore. I'm just trying to keep my crew alive for as long as I can. I can't think about the world, and I don't want to."

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I guess I’d hoped things were better down here.”

  “I don’t know what kind of spaceships you rebels have left,” says Parker, “but you should stock them up, point them at the farthest star, and fly away from here.”

  “I’ve done that already,” I say. “I’ve been to another star.”

  “Why’d you come back?”

  “I did what I was sent to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You won’t believe it.”

  "Does it matter?" she asks.

  “We destroyed a depot to cut the Trog’s supply route.”

  “Like a road?” she asks. “I thought space was open and free.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “but it has to do with the range their ships can travel between stars. There are only so many direct routes you can take. If you make one hop unavailable, you break the link.”

  She nods. “So you blew up a gas station.”

  “And destroyed the fleet that was there refueling.”

  “A fleet?” Parker is skeptical.

  “More than thirty cruisers.”

  “We shouldn’t have sent all our ships out there to do that,” she says. “You should have stayed here to fight the war.”

  “It wasn’t all of our ships,” I say. “It was just one.”

  “You’re full of shit.”

  “I’m not,” I insist. “We had some technologically advanced ships, and it was all we needed to destroy their fleet. I was the captain of one of them.”

  “If that’s true,” she says, “why are the Trogs in charge here? Why not use your super-special ships to win the war?”

  “We only ever had two,” I say. “The Trogs were able to destroy our manufacturing facility before we were able to build more.”

  “Two’s all you need, right? If they’re as powerful as you say.”

  “We don’t have two anymore. One is off on a mission and I don’t know when it’s coming back. Mine was destroyed in a battle out by Jupiter.”