Theirs To Defy: a Reverse Harem Romance

by Stasia Black

  “One of our satellites caught this earlier today.”

  His dad typed shit into his projected keyboard and then the crystalline screen above the globe came to life. It was an eagle’s eye view of a city-street, but close up. Really close up. So much so that Eric could see the woman on screen was holding a lottery ticket after just coming out of a 7-11.

  His dad tapped his tablet and the figures on the screen came to life as if it was a movie.

  The woman shoved the lotto ticket in her pocket as soon as she saw a group of guys loitering on the street but it was too late.

  She started down the street and the guys followed her. Eric doubted it was the lottery ticket they were interested in. They were stumbling and unsteady, drunk or high, he wouldn’t doubt. But not so much that when she started running one of the group couldn’t sprint and catch her, dragging her into an alley with a hand over her mouth.

  “Jesus, Dad!” Eric jumped back from the desk, turning away from the screen. “What the fuck?”

  “Keep watching.”

  “No. What the fuck is your point with all this?”

  “Keep watching.”

  Eric refused, turned resolutely away. But when flashing light filled the room, from the screen behind him, he couldn’t help but turn around to see what was happening.

  Three police cruisers had pulled up to the alley. The attackers were being led away in handcuffs while a female officer helped the woman out of the alley with an arm around her shoulders.

  Eric paused, frowning even as his nauseated stomach settled a little at knowing the woman was safe.

  “Because our satellites are up there, we can stop this kind of thing from happening. Every day, we’re making the streets safer. Not just inner-city streets, either. The whole world. We can keep an eye on Sudan, Afganistan, Russia. We can see dangers as they’re developing and do something before people are hurt. This is what I’ve devoted my life too. I went to flight school but when I had the opportunity, I came to work here and be part of the team that maintains these satellites and maintains operations and information requests.”

  Eric shook his head, looking back at the screen. Back at the cops who were still shoving the bad guys into cop cruisers. Because of course this was the example his dad would choose to show him.

  He looked back at his dad. “Jesus, Dad. Talk about a fucking nanny state. You work the fucking nanny cam. You think this is supposed to make me respect you? You invade people’s privacy for a living.”

  His dad’s mouth dropped open.

  “The police were able to save that woman because of us!”

  Eric scoffed. “That’s the kind of logic dictators use to justify surveillance. We’re protecting you. We’ll put these cameras in your house to keep you safe from intruders. Who gets to decide who watches this? Who put you in charge and made you judge, jury and executioner? Because I know you use this same tech for drone strikes. Don’t even bullshit me. You lock onto some poor bastard and then poof,” Eric made a gesture with his hands, “they’re gone in a quick explosion from a bomb that dropped out of nowhere!”

  “But our government are the good guys.” Dad took a step toward him but Eric only backed up even further.

  “Sometimes you have to have faith, son. Faith that the people we elect to represent us in our government have our best interests at heart. That they are protecting us the best they can. The world today is a terrifying place. Believe me. The things I see…” His voice trailed off and he looked into the distance, a slightly haunted look entering his eyes before they snapped back to Eric. “All I ever wanted was to keep you and your mother safe. So I consider it an honor to serve my country. Haven’t you ever had faith in something bigger than yourself?”

  Eric hadn’t. Not in a way that mattered anyway. And he wouldn’t, not until his dad died of a heart attack and he’d be forced to re-examine a lot of things.

  His dad had been scared.

  That was what he’d been admitting that night—but of course Eric had been too much of a self-involved ass to realize it. His dad was telling him the reason he worked sixty-hour weeks was because he was scared. It was the very same reason Eric would enlist eight years later. Endless wars. The terrorist attacks. The constant refugee crises all over the world. All the pundits arguing and no one offering real solutions.

  Eric enlisted because he’d wanted to raise his daughter in a safer world than the one he saw looming ahead. Just like his dad had wanted for him. And maybe both of their beliefs that one man could ever make any difference in a world already so far down the path paved to hell had been ridiculous and naïve. No maybes about it. They’d definitely put their faith in the wrong institutions.

  But if Eric and this team now could take down Travis and have a say in how the new government was built—if they could do even better than President Goddard. Not hard, considering what a disgusting, drunken slob the man had become...

  They could push for more reforms. More law, more order. Maybe they could bring this country back from the brink and make it the nation it was always meant to be. The kind of nation America’s Founding Fathers envisioned, but this time around, they’d be aware of all the mistakes and sins of the past and could God-willing avoid repeating them.

  Eric looked over to Drea where she was still sorting through things in the closet, occasionally pulling items out and adding them to a growing mountain outside the door.

  Her face was a mask of concentration as she sorted through another crate and Eric had a stray thought: she’d make a good President.

  He blinked a little in surprise at the thought but then nodded, liking it the more he thought about it. Maybe what the country needed this time around was a Founding Mother instead of a Founding Father.

  The sat phone rang then, interrupting his thoughts. David picked it up.

  “Alpha here. Is there a problem with Napoleon?” David’s head jerked toward Eric. “That’s not what this line is for. Clear the line for official communiques only.”

  David’s frown deepened into clear annoyance. Eric walked over to him. Why had he looked Eric’s direction like that? Unless it was…

  “Your father is busy—” David started but Eric yanked the phone away from him.

  “Sophia? What’s wrong?”

  “Dad,” came Sophia’s voice. “Thank God.”

  “What’s going on? Did Travis’s men find the caves? Are you under attack?”

  “No. God. No, Daddy. Nothing like that.”

  Eric scrubbed a hand down his face. This girl. He swore, she’d be the death of him one of these days. “Hon, the General’s right. We really do need to keep this line—”

  “I’m leaving,” Sophia interrupted him. “I wanted to say goodbye because I won’t be here by the time you get back.”

  “What?!”

  “Daddy, don’t yell.”

  “Then don’t say ridiculous things.”

  “Dad, you can’t pretend I’m a little girl forever. You were signing up for the Army when you were my age.”

  “I was twenty-one when I signed up for the army.” Eric fought to keep his voice even. Sophia was impulsive sometimes and she had wild ideas. But Jesus, he was on a mission right now. He didn’t have time for this. “You’re not even nineteen.”

  “I’m nineteen in a week.”

  “Jesus, Soph, what are we even talking about? Stop this nonsense. You aren’t going anywhere. I’ll be back soon and then we can—”

  “That. Right there. You just dismiss me like I’m a little kid. But we just got a call from the Governor of Santa Fe. They’re rebuilding what’s left of New Mexico but they need our help and they want to trade. They say they have plenty of men who’d be willing to fight on our side, Daddy. I’m going to go there as an emissary from Central Texas South to plead for their help.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Eric felt like the vein in his forehead was about to burst. This was the last thing he needed to be dealing with right now. “Some stranger talked
to— You can’t— You will not—” He could barely find the words for what a fucking idiotic idea everything his daughter had just said was. If she went out on her own— Jesus Christ, Travis’s men were everywhere. If they got ahold of his baby girl, they’d—

  “Look, Finn Knight’s going with me. We’re taking a sat phone so we can talk about this later. I can take care of myself, Daddy,” she said, sounding annoyed and also like she wasn’t listening to a single word he said.

  “No you can’t!” Eric exploded. “You really fucking can’t! Your whole life I’ve made sacrifice after sacrifice so you’d never have to know exactly how fucking brutal and miserable and terrifying the world out there is. So no, you will not be going on some half-cocked idiotic—”

  “General!” Jonathan shouted.

  Eric looked over at the panic in Jonathan’s voice and saw him pointing up at the screen above the central projection. It was the NASA compound. Jonathan had zoomed in on the very building they were all standing in.

  And surrounding them were men climbing off of motorcycles, all fully armed.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  JONATHAN

  Jonathan rolled the orb to zoom in even closer.

  The two men carrying the crate had obviously heard the roar of the motorcycles as they drove up. They’d dropped the crate and grabbed for their weapons.

  But too late. There just weren’t any defensive positions in that empty courtyard. One of the soldiers dived for a trashcan but it didn’t matter, Wendall, it looked like.

  Both were cut down before their eyes.

  “Billy!” Drea shouted, hand out like she could stop what was happening.

  “How much longer to get the rest of the satellites retasked?” David snapped.

  “Too long,” Jonathan said, flipping the orb back to zoom out. All the way out past the atmosphere and past seeing the globe until all the satellites were visible, not just the geostationary ones but the geosynchronous ones that created a band around the earth’s equator like one of Saturn’s rings.

  There were hundreds. Thousands. It had always been ambitious to think they’d have enough time to come here and retask all the U.S.’s imaging satellites in a few hours but it had been a possibility.

  Now that was gone.

  “Go for Black Dawn?” Jonathan asked, voice shaking.

  There was a moment of silence, but just a moment. Then David’s sure voice ordering, “No. Go for Hellen Keller.”

  And when Jonathan didn’t respond immediately, David shouted, “Confirm, Operation Helen Keller is a go, soldier.”

  “Affirmative, Helen Keller is a go.”

  Frantic voices shouted in the background—Eric on the phone to his daughter, Drea shouting over the walkies to anyone that would listen, but Jonathan ground his teeth together and focused only on the projection in front of him.

  He spun the orb handset and tapped through the tablet, selecting the grouping of satellites David had indicated.

  All the satellites David indicated.

  And then Jonathan went through the protocol to initiate the self-destruct sub-routines. They wouldn’t just be redirected to point away from Texas. No, in eight minutes, all of the satellites he’d selected would aim themselves at the earth and burn up on reentry into the earth’s atmosphere.

  They’d all be destroyed.

  No one would have eyes in the sky anymore—not Travis, not them, not anybody. At least no one relying on US satellites.

  Ever again.

  Well, that’s what Black Dawn would have meant—no more eyes in the sky, destroying all the imaging satellites.

  Operation Helen Keller though, took it one step further.

  Jonathan’s finger hovered over the tablet and the Confirm Self-Destruct command.

  “Soldier, there’s no time,” David said, voice intractable. “You have your orders.”

  And so Jonathan did what he did best, at least ever since he’d met David Cruz. He followed orders. He pressed the button and the countdown began.

  The countdown not just to take down the imaging satellites, but the communication ones. In eight minutes, no, in seven minutes and fifty-one seconds, sat phones would no longer work. The fledgling internet would probably go down.

  David had just done what even the EMPs couldn’t. He’d ordered them back to the dark ages for real this time.

  No. David didn’t do it.

  Jonathan did.

  He sat back in the chair and ran his hands through his hair. What the hell had he just done?

  Neither Operation Black Dawn or Helen Keller was discussed with the Council. David wasn’t sure they’d have the stomach for it.

  If something goes wrong and we don’t have time to retask the satellites, we have to assure the trip isn’t in vain, David had said. We have to take away Travis’s eyes one way or another.

  This wasn’t even your idea, Jonathan had argued back, and suddenly you’re its biggest proponent?

  I should have thought of it. It was shortsighted of me to assume NASA had been destroyed with Houston. It’s brilliant. We blind Travis. And if it comes to it, we deafen them as well. We can’t waste an opportunity like this. We have to take out the communication satellites while we have the chance.

  Are you crazy? Jonathan had all but shouted, then quickly gotten ahold of himself so no one else in nearby tunnels overheard them. We rely on the sat phones as much as Travis does. More maybe with our men scattered all over the Hill Country. You won’t be able to communicate with them. At all!

  I’ll prepare them so they know it’s coming. Or at least that Operation Helen Keller is a possibility. Obviously the optimum choice is to be able to retask the satellites for a short time, and then bring them back online after Travis is dealt with. But Jonathan, you and I both live in the real world. You know what war is like. This plan is shoddy at best, thrown together in a day without knowing the landscape, blue prints, local threats, whether or not it’s even still a viable—

  I get it, Jonathan had cut him off. But to take such a drastic measure—

  Have you looked around since we’ve been here? The vein strained in David’s neck as he gestured at the cave around them. This is a fight for survival. Not just for you and me, or even our men hiding in those hills. Haven’t you seen the men and women in these caves? The families? You’ve seen the food stores. We’ve got enough to last maybe another week and a half with the seventeen hundred of us down here and then people will start to starve. Those women’s children—the next generation that are the future of this planet—will start to starve or be driven out to Travis’s mercy.

  A country is its people, Jonathan. We have the chance, and it’s a very slim chance, to fight for this country, their country, before it’s lost to a madman for who knows how long.

  So yes, if I lose the convenience to pick up a phone and call someone a hundred or a thousand miles away, fine. Mankind survived without it before and we’ll survive without it again. We’ll figure out the fucking telegraph again if that’s what it takes. But we’ll have a country while we do it.

  “We’ll have a country,” Jonathan whispered to himself as he pushed back from the console and stood up.

  Six minutes, thirty-eight seconds.

  “Hey!” Eric shouted.

  Jonathan looked around, one hand still on his head. David was redialing on the sat phone, ignoring Eric. And Drea was darting for the stairs. Shit. With her savior complex who knew what she would do if they let her out of their sight. She didn’t even have a gun—she’d handed it off to that stowaway, Gisela. Jonathan had the sudden urge to punch whatever soldier had let themselves be sweet-talked into letting that girl come along on the other transport. She’d be a distraction and Drea needed to be sharper than sharp if they were going to get out of this alive.

  Eric was still arguing with David, who’d turned his back on him and was barking that Operation Helen Keller was a go to someone on the other line.

  Jonathan grabbed Eric’s arm. “Drea,” he
called and pointed toward where she was scampering over the fallen metal door.

  It was all Eric needed. He immediately turned and ran. “Drea. Wait. Drea!”

  Jonathan went after them both.

  But she wasn’t slowing down for anyone and damn she was fast. Even the small head start she’d gotten was enough so that she was a staircase ahead of them.

  Jonathan passed Eric on the stairwell. Eric might be fit, but Jonathan trained under General David Cruz. Jonathan grabbed a hold of the handrail to steady himself as he ran in the darkness.

  Still Drea got to the top ahead of him. Jonathan heard the shouting as he burst from the dark of the stairwell into the frantic dance of flashlights.

  “Quiet,” Jonathan called.

  He looked around, doing a quick count of bodies in twos. There was Franco and Gisela, Billy and Garrett, plus the two soldiers they’d left guarding the entrance to the doorway where the mazelike hallways began—they must have run this direction when the attack began.

  Drea was hugging Billy as he explained a soldier up front had taken the crate and sent him back here.

  It was a short celebration though, because only moments later—

  RAT TAT TAT TAT TAT TAT TAT.

  Jonathan leapt for Drea, taking her to the floor as he looked around for the source of the live fire.

  Franco had done the same with Gisela and she was screaming all right, but it was only into the walkie she clutched in her hand.

  “Hello?” she cried. “Come in. Arthur? Art? Come in! Christian? Do you read me? Can anybody hear me?”

  Jonathan definitely heard voices over the frequency, but it wasn’t any of his and David’s men. He crawled over and yanked the radio out of her hand.

  “Quiet!” he ordered again.

  “But the men!” Gisela said, half hysterical as she tried to crawl out from underneath Franco. “We have to go help them!”

  Jonathan met Franco’s gaze over her head.

  “It’s too late,” Franco said gently, slowly easing off her. “They’re gone.”