by Mark Tufo
“Daddy!” he squealed as Dee placed him down. My son ran to me and I scooped him up and pulled him tight. Tracy joined me as we had a family hug.
“I’m so sorry, little one,” I said into his ear. “We just finally got you back and now I’m sending you away again. You’ll be in good hands, though. My father—your grandfather loves you very much.”
“Pop-pop?” he asked.
“Yes, you are going to see Pop-pop. If we don’t...if we don’t see you for a while, baby, I just want you to know that mommy and daddy love you very much.”
“I love you very much!” He was smiling as he hugged us in tight. “Come home with me?” he asked.
“Soon, kiddo. Soon.” Just then, this little boy was every Human son, every child of Earth. I don’t think there was a dry eye on the bridge, though I couldn’t tell through my own haze of tears. I kissed him on the forehead.
“I’ll get him on the shuttle,” Tracy said.
“I will miss you, spawn of Michael and Tracy,” Dee said as he gently caressed his head.
Obviously, I knew our stance was beyond hopeless, but when Dee used Tracy’s name, that was the icing on the cake, and maybe that was the kick in the junk I’d needed to steel my resolve. Fuck giving up, fuck dying. And if death did find me on this day, I was going to make sure that the roadway to the afterlife was paved with Stryvers.
Chapter 20
MIKE JOURNAL ENTRY 14
The shuttles were gone, the last tear and nose cleaning tissues were disposed of and now we were ready for war. Our ploy had worked somewhat. We’d given the shuttles a much needed head start, but that hadn’t stopped the Stryvers from detecting them and once they had, they’d dispatched their much faster fighters to intercept. There wasn’t a chance on any of God’s green planets I was going to allow that to happen.
“Deploy every fighter we have,” I ordered.
“Intercept course?” Tracy asked.
“Defensive shield.” It made absolutely no sense for us to send our fighters up to the Stryvers; like the Guardian, they would be vastly outnumbered. But if they stayed close we could assist them in their defense.
“Hey, umm, Mike.” BT leaned in. “Listen, I realize you’re in command and all, but aren’t we sitting ducks here? I mean, wouldn’t it be better if we did some Muhammad Ali-ing? You know, duck and punch. That kind of thing?”
“Muhammad Ali didn’t fight five people at once. But when the shuttles are safely parked on Earth we’ll be able to do more.”
“You have absolutely no clue what, though, right?”
“That would be correct.”
“I should have got on one of them shuttles.”
“I offered.”
“Yeah I know. But I’d feel worse for running; Ali wouldn’t run.”
“There’s no dishonor in living, BT.”
BT eyed me. “I know people; it’s an important quality on the streets. I can tell what’s going to happen before it does. I think it would have made for great cop instincts, if I’d had the chance. What I do know, is that some way, somehow, you are going to get out of this shit and when you do, I want a front row seat so I can say I was there when Michael Fucking Talbot gave two big fuck yous to the Stryvers!” BT had displayed the double eagles for the entire bridge crew, who let him know how much they appreciated his enthusiasm with a small cheer.
“Fighter contact in five,” the captain said.
“Weapons hot. Dee, Captain Turrell, light them up with everything we have except the rail gun. Saving that little surprise for the big ships.”
“Yes, sir,” they both said.
The screen was a swirling mass of ships and red, blue, and yellow shots. The battle for Earth had begun again. With the Guardian’s suppressive fire we were able to keep the Stryver fighters at bay. They were relentless, if nothing else, and had no problem smashing headlong into our hastily built wall. After the Stryver fighters took some devastating losses, they pulled back. I’d like to say we cheered and whooped it up, but we knew it would have been a very short-lived victory party. Part of the reason they’d moved off was that there was basically a flotilla of ships barreling down on us. It wasn’t two minutes later the comm captain said we were being hailed.
“Progerian?” I asked hopefully.
He shook his head tersely.
“Dammit. Put it on the screen.”
“My beloved, you must stop this madness.” It was Beth. There was a growl-like sound from Tracy’s station; I thought the woman was going to rip her console free from its moorings. It was actually pretty sexy.
“This is Colonel Talbot,” I clarified.
“Oh,” Beth said sheepishly. “I guess it could still work.” She smiled. Helen of Troy had nothing on the visage that stared back at me and all that this implied. “May I speak with the general so that we might possibly put this latest unfortunate incident behind us.”
“I am in command,” I told her, not offering any explanation.
“Yes, yes you are. As I suppose you should have always been, Michael.”
“What do you want Beth? We’re a little busy here—I don’t have time for soap opera theatrics.”
“The Stryvers have made me their emissary to Earth. They are planning glorious and wonderful things for our planet; they are going to restore it to its natural beauty—the way it was before man attempted to choke the life out of it and even after the Progerians did their best to destroy it completely.”
“I’m sure that’s their plan, Beth, but even you have to realize that once they restore Eden they have no intention of letting the children back into the garden, right? I mean, you get that somewhere in that fucking noggin of yours, don’t you?”
“I’ve been promised a place.”
“Ah. So we’ve got to the meat of it then. As long as Beth is alright, fuck everyone else. Gonna get mighty lonely in that playground all by yourself.”
“You could join me…oh the wonders we could explore,” she said.
“Listen bitch.” Tracy had got up and stood behind me. “He’s my husband, you lost. Go find some other power-mad psychotic to share in your delusions of grandeur.”
“Major Talbot, do you need to be reminded we are in a volatile situation right now and that I am in command of this ship?” I turned to face my wife. She acquiesced, but I knew the interest on my transgressions would be compounding for many a year. Beth added insult to injury when she waved goodbye as the major went back to her duty station.
“It’s safe to assume, Beth, I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m having a hard time believing that you’ve already forgotten that you tried to have me killed not that long ago.”
She waved that away as if it were inconsequential—I guess it was to her, considering it wasn’t her life. “What’s important is that you’re alive and so am I. But you can’t possibly win. Your allies,” she spat that last word out, “have left you in your greatest time of need. I thought perhaps my husband had finally grown a set of balls when I saw that the Guardian stood her ground, especially against such overwhelming odds. I should have known you had taken over; no one else would stand there against this onslaught.”
Of course, I wasn’t going to tell her that I’d have run with my tail wedged firmly between my legs if I could have. If I could instill any doubt in their charge it needed to be done now.
“Why would I? Leave, I mean.”
Beth eyed me. “You seriously believe you can defeat the Stryver attack force?”
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”
She looked off screen, I would imagine to her Stryver handler who was asking her to extract some vital piece of information as to what I had planned. I couldn’t slip up if I wanted to; I had absolutely nothing.
She looked nervous. A part of me pitied the woman because she had strayed so far from anyone’s definition of a sane path; but that part of me kept itself wisely in the silent minority. Real tough to give a shit about someone who keeps trying to plant you. “If you surrender,
Michael, you have been promised a great place in the Stryver community.”
“Surrender? That’s rich. I was going to ask the same of you, but I wasn’t going to make any sort of grandiose offer. As for you and the Stryvers both, you can go fuck yourselves. I’d no sooner align with either of you than I would shove fire ants up my ass. See you soon.” I nodded to the comm officer to shut off the link.
“Fire ants up your ass?” Dee asked. “That was not very diplomatic, Colonel.” He said it so deadpan I wanted to bust out laughing.
“I hope my message isn’t misconstrued. Major Talbot, can this vessel fly within Earth’s atmosphere?” I asked.
“It can…it will be as wieldy as a brick, though.”
“What about the Arachnid Class ships—can they fly in the atmosphere?”
“Surprisingly well.”
“Of course. How well?”
She sent the information to my small viewer. My proposal was good, better than I expected, but not good enough. Not by half.
I discussed my plan with the officers on the bridge; there were a lot of pale faces staring back at me when I was through with presenting my idea. I was happy I hadn’t brought up my initial thought, which was to blast the moon into fragments hoping to send thousands if not millions of projectiles hurtling toward the enemy. I wasn’t sure of the ramifications of taking the moon out of the equation for Earth, but I had to imagine it wouldn’t be widely appreciated. Add to that the fact that I couldn’t be sure some rather large pieces wouldn’t fall back our way, destroying what I was trying to save. Looked good in my head, me using the moon as a huge space grenade, good thing I kept it there, the thought I mean. Well, and the moon, too.
I dispatched a fighter to Earth with a list of what I needed from those on the planet before we began our descent. I could not chance radioing a message and letting the Stryvers intercept it and catch wind of what we were doing. The Stryvers had halted their advance; not sure if they were concerned at all with what I’d alluded to, but now that we were moving, so were they. Not in a way that suggested they wanted to catch up; match pace maybe.
“I need them to follow us,” I said aloud.
“I think I know a way,” BT said.
“I’m listening, man.”
“Well, it seems to me that all of these ships have a way of figuring out if a ship is going to do that buckling thing. What if they think we’re about to buckle? You think they’d come charging in then? Wanting to shoot us up before we could blast off, maybe?”
“Dee? What do you think?” I asked.
“Perhaps it could work, though you must understand that the system is offline, and to turn it back on and power it up in its current state could be extremely dangerous.”
“Colonel,” Tracy said. “At our present speed and course, we’re two hours from the Earth’s atmosphere. Once we get inside, we’re basically sitting ducks. We won’t be able to maneuver around their shots, not to mention they may target the surface.”
“Don’t they realize I’m attempting to set a trap here? What is the effective range of their weaponry?” I asked.
“Hundred thousand miles, maybe a little more.” Tracy was looking at the charts.
“Do they have rail guns?” I asked hopefully.
“I do not see anything like that here,” she replied. Dee had gone over to look as well.
“Does it strike anybody else as odd that they stuck one on this ship?” I asked.
“Not really, Colonel,” Dee said. “They believed by now that this ship was going to be under their control. Also, with their weapon, we destroyed a powerful ship of their enemy. If they were looking for a weapons test, which I believe this to have been, it performed admirably.”
“Alright, anyone got any idea of the range of our new toy?” The crickets didn’t come back…even they decided to sit this one out. “Okay, let’s start doing some math. If we move closer to the Stryver vanguard, what is the safest distance we can pop off some rounds, turn the hell around, and stay ahead of their weaponry without taking any significant damage? This needs to be figured down to the mile folks. I want the Stryvers to believe they can catch us by the time we throw the net over them.”
“That’s a lot of moving parts, Mike,” BT said. He looked fairly nervous, or maybe he was just reflecting my face back at me.
Dee was crunching numbers. “One hundred and fifty-three thousand miles, Colonel, is as close as we can get.”
“Let’s do it. What the hell do we have to lose.”
“Quite a lot,” Dee intoned.
“What do we stand to lose if we don’t?” I asked.
“Quite a bit more.”
“Major, get us underway,” I told my wife.
Once we turned and started heading towards the Stryvers, they slowed and stopped, getting into a line to face us.
“Do you think they have any idea just how fucking nuts you are?” BT asked quietly.
“I’m hoping Beth is filling them in.”
“You realize you have that little lopsided smile thing going on, right?” he asked.
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“Fuck, I wish they could see it, they’d go running back to whatever rocks they crawled out from under.”
“Don’t worry man, this ship is an extension of that smile.”
“Yeah let’s just hope they don’t wipe it off.” He pulled his straps tighter.
“Their weapons are charging,” Captain Turrell said.
“Do you wish our weapons to power up in response?” Dee asked.
My first instinct was to say no, but maybe they needed an inkling of my intention. “Yeah, everything hot.” An alarm barked three times to let everyone know we were preparing for battle—not that anyone had left their post.
“Is it tough hefting those balls around?” BT asked so no one else could hear.
“No idea. Ask the major. She’s been holding on to them for me.” I pointed to Tracy.
“Fantastic,” he answered sarcastically.
He tightened his straps farther.
“You get them any tighter you’re going to pass out from blood constriction,” I told him.
“That’s the idea, I either wake to a cheering crowd or I find myself standing at the pearly gates.”
“You’re heading up? I wouldn’t have thought that. Figured we’d do a little partying down below.”
“You’re being cavalier because you’re petrified, right?”
“I’m so scared, I can’t feel my balls because I swallowed them,” I said solemnly.
“Good. Because for a second I thought maybe you weren’t Human.”
“Like what…a vampire or some shit?”
“I was thinking cyborg.”
“Oh, that makes more sense.”
“Fifteen minutes,” the captain updated. It appeared that the Stryvers were going to wait for us. I thought that was mighty decent of them.
“Dee pick out your bitch, then when we get close enough make sure he doesn’t stand a chance.”
I don’t think Dee was overly thrilled with my leadership vernacular, but he also didn’t question me on it.
“Oh, and if you happen to pick the one with Beth on it, I’ll give you an extra week’s leave when this is over and a case of cold Moxie.”
“Hardcore, man, hardcore,” BT whispered.
“Yeah, you face off against a Stryver one on one and let me know what you think about the person that put you in that situation.”
“Yeah I do still hate you for that. Stryver penis.” BT was shaking his head and mumbling softly.
“Huh, I forgot about that.”
“Five minutes,” the captain said.
I swallowed hard. BT looked over at me. “I think one of them dropped into my stomach.”
“A ball?”
I nodded.
“I fucking hate you, Talbot.”
“Most get over it.”
“Yeah? And those that don’t?”
“They usually find thems
elves hurtling toward death.” Pretty sure he flipped me off but things were getting a little distracting when the captain began the rocket countdown. You know the one that starts with “ten” and ends with “blast off!”…only this one was going to end with “run like hell!”
“Dee, the second we cross that threshold you start firing. Tracy, we’re not even going to have time to watch the rounds hit. Give Drababan a three count and move us out of here.”
“Firing,” Drababan announced. He let a barrage of rounds loose from the cannon.
Captain Anders had no sooner warned that we were being pursued when I could feel the effects of Tracy’s maneuvering as she throttled the engine. I would have loved to hear the throaty roar of a 69 Camaro or something equally as muscle-y; what we got sounded more like a golf cart.
“Direct hit, Michael,” Dee announced.
“Incoming…” Turrell announced. “Pulse weapons.”
I was relieved that so far they had not fired on us with their own rail gun.
“Colonel, they’re in pursuit,” Tracy announced. She was professional enough to not lose her cool. I’d have to ask her how she did that if we lived.
I was thrilled and terrified that my plan was working.
“How many?” I asked. I was hoping Dee had splashed all but one; at that point I’d have Tracy whip a u-turn and we’d gun it out like ships of old, all broadside.
“Waiting for the debris field to clear.” She was looking at her monitor. “At least three, there is a fourth, though I do not believe it’s moving. One ship is completely destroyed.”
“Nice shooting, Dee,” I said.
“I am saddened by the loss of so much life, but I would rather their lives were sacrificed than anyone aboard this ship.”
“Colonel,” Tracy started then paused. “We are at maximum speed and the Stryvers are gaining on us at a rate we did not account for.”
“How short are we going to come up from our initial goal?” I asked.
“Ten thousand miles or so,” she replied after doing some quick figuring. “They’ll be in weapons range in five minutes.”
I wanted to swivel back around to get our static rail gun into position but we couldn’t fly backward all that easily. Sort of like driving a car backward on a curvy gravel-strewn side road at night, with speed. Sure it can be done but you’d better be a real good driver.