It's Harder This Way

by Travis Hill

  “For what?” she asked, her head sharing the pillow with mine on the narrow cot.

  “Well, for laughing. And for saying sorry again. And for coming so quick.”

  “I barely lasted longer than you,” she said then kissed me on the cheek.

  We spent a few minutes turning that kiss into a tangle of tongues and gliding fingers before she pulled back and closed her eyes.

  “And for always pissing you off,” I said.

  “You don’t piss me off, Evan,” she said without opening her eyes. “I’m just a natural bitch because I have to be.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  I was friendly with almost everyone at The Farm unless I was in charge of something. I tried to remain friendly but tended to morph into Asshole Evan to anyone who wasn’t a team player.

  “If you were a woman, I’d be more inclined to believe you,” she grunted, finally looking at me. “If you were a black woman, then I would definitely agree with you.”

  “If I were a black woman, you’d be a lesbian,” I joked.

  The frown she gave me wilted the silly grin I formed to let her know I was kidding.

  “Would that be a problem?” she asked in Colonel Collins’ voice.

  “What? No. I don’t give a shit if you like both any more than I care about the color of your skin or the size of your tits.”

  She glared at me long enough that I worried my smart mouth had just gotten me in trouble again. She surprised me with another kiss then sat up and cupped her breasts.

  “You have to admit they’re pretty nice,” she said.

  “I’ll admit that,” I agreed, feeling more confused than ever.

  I couldn’t get a bead on Rebecca Collins. She stared at me half the time as if I were a racist piece of shit who needed his ass stomped into blood jelly. The other half of the time she seemed annoyed by my presence. Once in a while I was sure I got the vibe that she wanted to do exactly what we just did. I tried to be friendly with her but was stonewalled at every step unless it had to do with army affairs. Then she was curt but open to listening to whatever I had to say and even deferred to me more often than not when it concerned anyone from The Farm.

  “Look, Evan, I like you. I hope I’ve made that clear.” I gave her a half nod and a half shake. “I’m just not all that friendly. I’m very sure I’ve made that clear.” I gave her a vigorous nod and a goofy smile. “Unlike you, I won’t apologize for it. If you lived my life, you wouldn’t either.”

  She lay down next to me, my chest pressing into her back. I stroked her stomach and hips, letting my fingers trail down her thighs and across her breasts while she opened up to me. A little, anyway. All I really got from her was a condensed story about her life after her family fled Las Vegas. Her mother, father, and two brothers escaped the hell of post-invasion Vegas and made their way through the Sierras on foot for a year before holing up outside of Sacramento.

  Her father and older brother were murdered four years later during a dispute in Fortuna, forcing Mom, younger brother, and Rebecca to flee further up the coast. Rebecca’s brother broke his leg near Crescent City and died of an infection within a month when they couldn’t find medical supplies or even anyone with minimal health care training. Her mother had a stroke or heart attack a year later near Grants Pass. They were on their way to Medford where a cousin from her father’s side lived.

  I was sure I could feel her body tremble but she would probably slug me in the mouth if I insinuated she was crying. I continued to alternate between holding her tightly to me and running my fingers across her smooth skin. She was “wild” for almost five years after her mother died until she tried to sneak into a temporary camp one night to steal food and possibly a weapon. The soldiers caught her and she screamed until they gagged her. Rebecca shivered violently as she told me how her worst fear was about to come true—a whole squad of male soldiers ready to rape a lone female thief.

  Instead, they tied her hands and feet then sat her in front of the campfire and offered her food. She didn’t trust them, but the smell of cooked meat and vegetables overpowered her suspicion and soon she was cursing them out to untie her hands so they would stop staring at her like she was a wild animal feasting on a carcass. The soldiers untied her feet after she was full from two bowls of camp stew. They told her she was free to go or she could join up with them since they were on their way back to a safe hideout.

  When she asked if they were taking her back just to let more men rape her, they laughed as a group and called out into the night for someone named Sergeant Dawkins. A short, squat, no-nonsense Hispanic woman strode into the firelight, cursing at the soldiers for making so much noise and giving away her position. This only caused the soldiers to laugh harder as well as ask the sergeant if she would explain to the young girl exactly what their lives as soldiers were like.

  Rebecca was hooked immediately. She was seven years old when life changed for everyone. After spending a dozen years on the move, everyone she’d ever known and loved taken from her one by one, she found stability. The initial “Base Charlie” was little more than a converted campground on the eastern end of Crater Lake. Over the years, it steadily grew, eventually moving to its current location once the geothermal station was completely rewired and brought online.

  I could sense the pride in her gruff voice at having been a part of it for a decade. After everything was stolen from her, she found a place where she belonged. General Pryor took a liking to her and soon realized she was a born leader. Men and women alike stood at attention and listened to her, earning her a promotion within a year. Her squads outperformed all others on a regular basis. She was strong, confident, and deadly.

  After hearing the abbreviated life story of Rebecca Collins, I understood why she wasn’t very friendly to most people. She’d fared far better than a lot of females after the invasion. Her “bitchiness” was simply how she had learned to handle potentially murderous strangers at first, underlings and subordinates after enlisting in Pryor’s army. I had no doubt some of it was from fending off men who found her as desirable as I did. Men who didn’t like being told no. Possibly women as well, but I didn’t go down that avenue with her.

  I let her know I truly didn’t care about her sexuality by telling her my own abbreviated life story—a mother already dead and a father gunned down right in front of me. A sister who trusted me and my father enough to come out to us after Mom disowned her for it. A sister whom I loved more than anyone in my life. How I was still slightly deranged after spending most of my post-invasion life searching for her up and down the coast but never finding more than a hint of her existence.

  When I grew silent after filling her in on my background, she turned over and faced me. We spent what felt like hours kissing tenderly, our lips roaming from each other’s neck to earlobe to shoulder when they weren’t locked together in muted desperation. We made love again, this time starting slow and working our way into a rough and tumble ending. I almost fell headfirst into the floor after nearly blacking out from the intensity of possibly the greatest orgasm I’d ever been blessed with.

  Rebecca fell asleep in my arms. I remained awake and alert for almost an hour. My mind was a jumble of worries and thoughts and half-baked plans. Jenna’s face appeared every minute or so, mostly frowning, sometimes smiling. Dru’s face flashed through my brain, her expressions ranging from hatred to desire to jealousy at my intimacy with Rebecca. Sandra’s face arrived as if on schedule. I held onto her memory until I fell asleep.

  *****

  “General Pryor,” I said as I stood at attention in his office. “I need to have a moment of your time.”

  “Sit,” he said, not bothering to reprimand me for not saluting him. “What’s up, Lieutenant?”

  “Sir, some of my people are ready to go back to The Farm.” The look he gave me could have melted steel. “However, we have another group coming in to replace them.”

  He peered at me, his glare not softening.

  �
�How many want to leave?” he asked.

  “Around two hundred will be leaving,” I said, making it clear there was no negotiating that point.

  “And how many are arriving?”

  “About the same number.”

  “So… an even swap?” I nodded. “Are you fucking with me, Greggs?”

  “Sir?” I asked. I hoped he believed the story we had told him, but it didn’t really matter either way. “Why would I do that? My people want to return to the life they are familiar with. Army life isn’t for them. The rest of us are staying on, and we’ve got new recruits coming from The Farm.”

  “You better not be up to anything,” he warned.

  “General, let’s be real about this,” I said, my voice edging into annoyance. “If we were ‘up to something’ then we’d have already done it. We outnumber your people by a large margin, and we’re no worse than your people at violence and gun play. We could have taken over Base Charlie any time we wanted, but that’s not what we’re here for. You can’t tell me you’ve never had deserters before. Or did you execute them instead of letting them leave?”

  “Okay, Greggs. You’ve made your point.”

  I didn’t like that he avoided my question about what they did with deserters.

  “I’m sorry, General. Five hundred of us came, five hundred of us tried, and two hundred want to go. Two hundred more are coming. You didn’t think we wouldn’t keep in touch with our people, our families, did you?”

  “No, we know Sergeant Dru has been sneaking out beyond the northern perimeter regularly. We figured it was to relay messages.”

  “Well, you were right. Except she wasn’t sneaking out other than doing her best to remain undetected by anyone other than friendlies. If she wanted to avoid your patrols and their night vision or infrared gear, she’d have done that. She’s that good.”

  “How soon are your people leaving?”

  “They’re getting ready right now and will probably depart after lunch. I figure they’ve worked hard enough in the month we’ve been here to earn one last meal before the road.”

  “Yes, Lieutenant. Hopefully the replacements will learn what ‘chain of command’ and ‘superior officer’ mean.”

  I grinned at the older man. He was a hardass for sure, but he was intelligent, thoughtful, and at least had a sense of humor. Even if he was insane for thinking his plan could ever work. That reminded me of something I forgot to ask him.

  “General, sorry to change the subject, but you mentioned Base Echo and others here in the west as well as across the ocean? Colonel Hardaway gave us a bit of info as well, but I’m interested to hear what kind of network we have in place to work with.”

  “Why do you want to know that?” he asked, suddenly suspicious again.

  “Don’t worry, General. We’re not Bull spies and we don’t have plans to knock off other installations and take their tech. I’m interested because when my people ask what the hell we’re really supposed to be working toward, I’d like to tell them Base Charlie isn’t a lone outpost of humans fantasizing about liberating our planet. It helps morale a lot if they know we’re one of a dozen similar outfits.

  “Or fifty. Or fifty here in America and twenty more in China and Russia. Something. Anything is better than being the only crazy bastards left who didn’t get the memo that we’ve been thoroughly defeated and should have given up decades ago.”

  He scowled at me for a few seconds before nodding his head as if I’d just passed another test.

  “Base Charlie and Base Echo are just two of sixteen installations in California, Oregon, an—”

  A red light began to flash on the wall behind him at the same moment Rebecca burst into the office.

  “General, we’ve got scouts reporting Bull movement north on Highway 62 about thirty klicks out.” Collins’ face was hard but I could see worry etched into the corners of her eyes. She barely glanced at me. “Patrol 5-Delta has visual on at least four airships and half a dozen ground transports.”

  “Shit,” Pryor rumbled and stood up. “Some other time, Lieutenant,” he said to me. I nodded, my heart thudding in my chest at the news the Bulls were coming. “Colonel, execute Plan B. Take Greggs with you and show him where to set his crews up. I’ve got to get with Livingston and Jessups so we can make sure C2 is locked down or evacuated.”

  Rebecca snatched my arm and dragged me from the office. We jogged down the hallway to the stairs, taking them two at a time until we arrived at the barracks. Within ten minutes I had a dozen squad leaders gathered around me. Collins rounded up a dozen of her own. She marched us to one end of the barracks where the wall had been transformed into a large topographical map.

  “Hines, Gaz, Temuka, I want your people along this ridge,” she ordered, using a thin metal rod to point to the map. “Sergeant Draper, you take Team Zeta and set up on top of this ridge just below the tree line. Sergeant Ro, put Team X-Ray opposite Zeta here. Wait for all four shuttles to get within range and for God’s sake, don’t fuckin’ get itchy trigger fingers. We want those four ships surprised with a coordinated launch. If we don’t get them down all at once, they’ll grind us into jerky.”

  I waited until she told me where our people were supposed to go. The fear of taking on a Bull patrol with four airships melted away when I saw Team Zeta and X-Ray carrying the same launchers as Colonel Hardaway’s crew. The launchers worked and worked well if they could knock out a Bull support craft.

  Less than half of the new weapons had been handed out, but everyone had more than enough armor-piercing rounds. The fact that almost no one at Base Charlie had ever mentioned methane-based weapons told me the ammunition would do the job. More importantly, it meant that while the army was more than willing to use the deadly gas in minor encounters without risking instant death, their real goal was to eventually meet them with overwhelming firepower on a battlefield.

  I shook my head and checked my new weapon, an H&K G-36 with a laser target / range-finder and an upgraded scope. I had my AR-17 slung over my back just in case I needed it. I was sure beyond doubt the Bulls wouldn’t give anyone a pass—not even unarmed humans—when they came into the area.

  “You got a second?” Rebecca asked after she’d dismissed everyone to execute her orders.

  “Sure,” I answered. “What’s up?”

  “Not here.”

  She led me out of the barracks and a few feet down the hallway until she saw a small utility closet. Rebecca jerked on my shirt and I practically fell into the tiny room. She shoved me into the shelves lining the wall but before I could cry out in pain she had her lips pressed to mine. I felt her heart thundering in her chest. I locked one hand behind her neck, the other in the hollow of her back and held on while she gripped the sides of my face with her palms.

  “Don’t fuckin’ die,” she commanded me after breaking away with a gasp.

  Before I could reply, she was gone, her footsteps fading in the distance. I adjusted the two assault rifles then stepped out of the small closet and made my way to the outside. Dru and Tony waited for me at the entrance. I looked out over the hundreds of soldiers in the canyon and was proud of them, yet full of guilt that two hundred of them had planned to leave in a few hours.

  I thought about letting them go quietly but decided it would be better to keep them around. Unless the Bulls brought equal numbers, we had a fighting chance once those airships were down. Every extra gun would be useful.

  7. Crashing Plans

  “I don’t like this,” Tony said when we arrived at the top of the ridge looking out onto Highway 62.

  “I don’t either,” I said. I strained my eyes to see if I could catch a glimpse of the Bull airships. “But we can’t leave them to die. Maybe if this happened during our first few days, but not now. We have too many connections. Half of our people want to stay regardless, and just about everyone has found a partner.”

  “Some have half a dozen,” Tony muttered, which caused me to laugh. “What?” he asked with a growl.


  “Don’t act like you haven’t been sweet on Tim Swope,” I said with an evil grin, hoping to embarrass him. “Or should I say ‘Corporal Swope’?”

  “Shut up,” was all he said before turning around to yell at stragglers who were just making their way to the top.

  I laughed again at how red his face was before yelling at people down the line to get in position and get ready.

  “Lt. Greggs?” a girl’s voice shouted at me from behind.

  I turned to see a teenager approaching, her incredibly bright red hair vying for attention with the strange looking tube slung across her back. Her name tag said she was Sergeant Featherston. I smiled and returned her salute, still feeling silly about the army’s continued use of the gesture.

  “Lt. Greggs, I’m Sergeant Jan Featherston,” she said, her eyes giving me a once-over. I couldn’t tell if it was because she might have been interested in me if the Bulls weren’t about to show up and start a party, or if she was judging whether or not I was worthy of the colonel’s affections.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “Lieutenant, I’m supposed to be your liaison for this venture,” she said, holding out a hand for me to shake. I did and was impressed by the rough, calloused grip. “Colonel Collins wants me with you to help coordinate our attack since your people are new and not fully up to speed on tactics.”

  I eyed the odd weapon on her back. She smiled and rotated it around on the sling for me to get a better look.

  “M-200,” she said, a feral grin plastered on her face. “Fuckers will easily puncture Bull armor and the warhead has radar locking to guide its tracking control.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “If you have any ideas or directives that will give us an advantage, then by all means let’s hear them.”

  “We’ve got five klicks between us and Base Charlie,” she said. “We’re to hold this ridge unless it’s about to become a mass grave.”

  “Are you part of Zeta or X-Ray?” I asked.