by Jack Colrain
“I can’t imagine,” Hope said, her voice ringing with honesty.
“If the brass are full of fuckers like that, I bet they’ve got an out. I bet he’s one of those assholes—and the admiral, too; hell, maybe even General Carver—who’ve got some fucking bolthole ready with mansions and shit, on the opposite side of the galaxy, and they’re ready to ditch the rest of us when the Gresians show up.”
“Are you saying you don’t trust the senior echelons?” She sounded more curious than shocked.
“Do you?”
She didn’t answer.
Three
New York City, NY.
Their next flight left Portland International before dawn, but they had time beforehand to catch some five hours sleep as well as shower and change before boarding. Their next destination was New York City’s La Guardia airport, the largest and busiest domestic-only airport in the U.S. Its runways sat in reclaimed land in the river in Queens, like a giant aircraft carrier.
The October sky was crisp and blue over New York City as their plane descended, but the wait at the luggage carousel was even longer than they’d waited at Portland. Once they got their luggage and made it through the thronging crowd beyond the arrivals gates, Daniel and Hope were both delighted to see two figures neither of them had seen in far too long. The most important people in Daniel’s civilian life were waiting there for them: Daniel’s mom and dad. Daniel wasn’t surprised when his mom started crying happy tears the moment she saw him. He was more surprised that, this time, there was no corresponding sting in his own eyes, no tears on his own face. One glance at Hope reassured him that she wasn’t judging him for it—she was rushing forward to hug Maria. At the same time, Nathan stepped forward to hug his son with a proud nod. “Welcome home, Dan.”
Maria West was almost as tall as her son, and blessed with having very little gray in her hair, being as fit and healthy as most people twenty years younger. By contrast, Nathan still looked pretty much like any TV show’s idea of a middle-aged financier; overweight, his hair graying but not falling out—which gave Daniel hope for his own future—and with a piercing gaze.
The family walked towards the airport’s vast parking structure, Nathan gallantly taking Hope’s suitcase while Daniel carried his own. “Are you staying long?” Maria asked.
“A couple of days,” Daniel said. Nathan’s Mercedes GL—one of the largest SUVs on the market—was waiting for them. It wasn’t that long a drive up to Greenwich, even though LaGuardia was on the south side of NYC; it was less than thirty miles drive up I-95N, and less than an hour before the Mercedes GL drew into the long driveway by a very sturdy and ornamental six-foot-high, trellis-type fence at Nathan and Maria West’s 1930s house and estate. This driveway backed onto a hundred and ten acres of greenfield land on the outskirts of the city, all of it surrounded and divided into fields by lower fences. Originally, Nathan had considered the land an investment upon which he could build other properties to sell or rent, but in the end his wife’s attraction to walking the dogs and growing produce in a little section of countryside—probably going back to the fact that she had grown up on a farm in Spain—meant that never had happened.
Daniel had once been worried that Greenwich would have changed so much that he’d barely recognize his childhood home, but his occasional visits had proved that it was always the little things which changed. In many ways, that was worse, as it gave returning home the rather surreal flavor of a sort of Invasion of the Body Snatchers scenario, in which it gradually became not his hometown, but something that merely looked like it—an impostor town that didn’t quite get the details right, and so left him on edge. There were slightly fewer PMC hired guns on the streets this time than there had been on his visits last year, but more National Guardsmen. He wasn’t sure if that was an improvement or not, but could only hope so.
Maybe the old hometown wasn’t the key to relaxing after all, he thought, as the SUV drew up at the house’s front door.
Daniel carried their luggage up to his old room while Nathan and Maria clustered around Hope and took her through to the kitchen for refreshments. The bedroom that Daniel remembered had changed, too—his parents had put a new double bed in it, Queen-sized, which didn’t seem to have been used yet.
In the lounge, Nathan cracked open two beers and passed one to Daniel as he sat down across from him. “You’re looking good, son. I hate to admit it, because of... well, you know, but in some ways, I guess the Army life is still doing you some good.”
Daniel tried not to bark a caustic laugh at that, but he also supposed it was true. At least here at home he should be able to relax in familiar surroundings for a couple of days, and not be wondering which of his superiors was going to try to kill him and his unit next.
Lunch was taken in the kitchen, at his parents’ big wooden dining table. His parents had left no stone unturned to make sure they had Daniel’s and Hope’s favorites available, all home cooked. Daniel and Hope both enjoyed what they ate, and made good conversation, but Daniel suddenly noticed his mother looking at him with a strange expression. It was almost as if she was looking into his head, or his heart. “You seem a little different these days,” Maria said, thoughtfully. “I suppose all of our lives change us as we live them, but…”
“But, Mom?” Daniel wondered where she was going with this.
“You’ve maybe changed more than most of us do.”
He didn’t doubt that, not for one second. Not after all the death and pain he had seen. “For the better, or for worse?”
“I’m not sure,” Maria admitted. “Some of both, probably. We all have good and a bad turns and traits, positives and negatives, so I suppose when we change, all of that changes with us. Maybe one side grows more than the other, I don’t know.” She regarded him for moment. “All I do know is that you’re different than you once were.”
“That’s not really surprising, I guess,” Daniel replied. “I mean, things happened that...” He stopped, caught in the maelstrom of things he could and couldn’t say… things that would break confidences, things that would be gross or terrifying to her, things that would be heartbreaking, things that would be infuriating….
What could he tell her? What should he tell her?
“There’s a lot of stuff I can’t tell you,” he said eventually. “Security, classified stuff.” She nodded understandingly. “What I can tell you is that, after the things I’ve had to do—”
“We’ve had to do,” Hope said softly.
He hadn’t really wanted to imply anything untoward about Hope to his mother, but appreciated that she’d chosen to share the responsibility. “After some of the things Hope and I have done,” he corrected himself, “we’ve had to change. To adapt to—”
“And what are these things you’ve had to do?” his father put in. “I understand that orders are orders, and that there are certain… responsibilities you have to live up to, but…”
“There are things we’ve been forced to do, things we’ve chosen to do, and things that just happened.” He wasn’t sure he could explain satisfactorily, not to a civilian. Then he realized that his mother was right about him having changed, and that that was one example of how he’d changed; he had just thought of her as a civilian, not as family or as his mother. He shuddered inwardly, not liking that development at all. There was something else the Gresians had done, he thought; they’d alienated him from someone as close to him as his own mother. “The fucking Gresians changed us…” he said simply. “Everything they touched burned to ashes; planets, people, thoughts, feelings, all cremated by the Gresians.” He grunted. “And the Joint Chiefs didn’t much help.”
“Has Daniel changed that much?” Hope asked.
Maria smiled at her. “In some ways. I see how much you love him—how much you two love each other—but I wish you could have met him before. You could have been childhood sweethearts. Danny was such a sweet kid, growing up. We have some tapes of family vacations...”
Danie
l shook his head slowly. “They’re not much in the way of movies.”
“Then Elizabeth...” Maria trailed off, the pain suddenly clear in her face.
“I heard about what happened,” Hope said quietly.
“After that, Daniel…”
“Learned?” Daniel suggested.
“Changed,” Maria corrected him. “He became more cautious.”
“Not a bad thing in this world,” Daniel said pointedly.
“More cynical, less happy.”
“Was I supposed to be more happy that my sister got shot dead?” He regretted the words as soon as they’d been uttered, but his brain just hadn’t been quick enough to stop his mouth forming them.
“Don’t be stupid, Daniel. You’re not stupid, so don’t act as if you are.” She hesitated. “Please don’t change any more.”
Daniel was still unsure what she was getting at, but had the uncomfortable feeling it wasn’t complimentary. “Life is change, Mom. If we don’t change, we stagnate and die.”
“That’s true,” Nathan said. “I have to give him that one.”
Maria rolled her eyes slightly. “It is true, but change can go in more than one direction. You can change one way and then another, forward and back, like a pendulum.” She looked back at Daniel. “I remember the person you used to be, even if you don’t.”
“That guy’s gone,” Daniel said bluntly.
“I hope not, because he was smart, too.”
“Isn’t it smart to want to win a battle for survival?”
“Of course, and I want you to win. I want you to help beat these… what are they called? Gresians. But I want you to win in the right way.”
“And what’s the right way?”
“Don’t backtalk,” Maria said sharply. “Winning is just a fact, but how we win determines who we are.”
“I’m a soldier,” Daniel reminded her. “And I’m pretty full up.” He rose and walked out of the kitchen. Hope followed, and found him in the lounge, looking at family photographs on a small table. Hope picked up the photograph of Nathan, Maria, Daniel, and a little girl, eight years old. Elizabeth, Daniel’s sister.
“Your mother means well,” she said at last.
Daniel sat with a sigh. “Like she said, I’m not stupid. I get that, but… I get it, but it’s not something I want to hear over and over. She can say these things, but she doesn’t know what it’s like in here,” he said, tapping his forehead. He jabbed a thumb into his chest, over the heart. “Or in here. I don’t need to hear it right now, I really don’t.”
That evening, after some more relaxing garden tidying, and burning some leaf piles, they ate a small dinner, and then Hope yawned. Daniel had been able to feel her tiredness even before that, and been hoping she would see sense and get some rest. “I’m going to go to bed. It’s been a long day, and I didn’t sleep much on the plane,” she said with a smile.
Nathan smiled understandingly, passing her as he entered the lounge.
“You want a drink, Dan?”
“Yeah, I think I could use one.”
“Beer, or something stronger?” Nathan was walking to the liquor cabinet rather than going to the kitchen to visit the refrigerator, as if he already knew the answer. It wasn’t that difficult a prediction to make, Daniel thought. Not when his father knew he’d been to the memorial of a comrade yesterday, even if he didn’t know what had happened there. Drinks choices were pretty easy suppositions to make, and make pretty accurately, he thought.
“Bourbon on the rocks,” Daniel said as his dad opened the cabinet to reveal a variety of bottles and decanters. Nathan poured him some Maker’s Mark before fixing himself a Scofflaw cocktail. Daniel had a sudden memory of the last time he and his father had shared a drink in this study, and recalled that it hadn’t ended particularly well. His father had seemed dismissive of a military career then, though he seemed a lot more relaxed tonight. Daniel wished he could feel as relaxed, but something about the conversation that they’d had that day had left him feeling a little on edge. He wasn’t sure why, but he had a feeling that he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, just like he did whenever he spoke to a higher-ranking officer these days.
“Something bothering you?” Nathan asked.
“No. Well, not really.”
“Not really is something we usually say instead of yes. Kind of a short-hand for ‘I don’t want to admit to it, but yes.’”
Daniel wasn’t surprised that his dad could tell that since he had always been pretty similar in that regard; the apple, as they said, didn’t fall far from the tree. “Ah, Mom was just…. you heard her. She thinks I’ve changed, or am changing, or will change.”
“And have you?”
“I guess everybody grows up, and that’s pretty much a change. I mean, I’m not her little boy anymore, so there are bound to have been some changes. Maybe they’re just more noticeable after I’ve been away for a while.”
Nathan sipped his cocktail and nodded. “That’s true, and I guess there’s stuff a frontline soldier sees that changes a man, too.” Daniel didn’t answer; he didn’t have to. Nathan hesitated. “I once offered you… a deal of sorts.”
“I remember.” Walk away from the Army, Daniel remembered.
“That offer will always be open, if you have… doubts, about your superiors.”
Daniel wondered where his father had gotten that idea. Not that it wasn’t true. But he wondered how his father knew about it. When Nathan had made that offer before, Daniel had exploded and there’d been a shouting match, but right now, Daniel wasn’t in the mood for a shouting match. Besides, this time there was something attractive about the idea.
“And does that offer apply to both of us?”
“Absolutely,” Nathan said. “You and Hope are too good a pair to discourage. You don’t have to change—either in your mom’s sense of the word, your own, or in the relationship you and Hope have. You can simply walk away from the military.”
“And then what?”
“Have a family. Become the attorney you trained to be.”
“Get killed when the Gresians arrive?”
Nathan paused. “Not necessarily.”
That got Daniel’s attention. “Let me guess, that rumor about an Illuminati colony is true?”
“Don’t be ridiculous; the Illuminati were only ever a club in the 17th and 18th centuries…. But I have connections, a friendly senator here, a congressman there. And I know that there is a fallback colony for a number of allied governments and their...”
“Chosen few...” Daniel finished, understanding. He was stunned, but wasn’t sure of whether it was simply because there was such a colony, or because his father knew about it and had access to it.
“Something like that.”
“How? Where?”
“It’s several hundred light years away; I forget the exact distance. There are a couple thousand people already there. The plan is to take a few thousand more over the next three years, just in case the Gresians can’t be stopped.”
“They’ll be stopped,” Daniel growled.
“I believe you. But I can also get you and Hope onto a ship for it, along with your mother and myself. The Gresians may find us eventually, but the colony will have orbital defenses.”
Daniel had seen that before; there had been orbital defenses on Lyonesse, too, which had been of little use since it had turned out that there’d already been Gresians on the ground there. “I wouldn’t put my faith in that, Dad,” he said quietly.
“They’ve even got their own factory ship, like the ones in the asteroid belt. It’s small, but it’s capable of making other ships. You could have a life there, both of you.”
Appalled, Daniel backed away from the idea. Of course, the senior echelons had get-outs. Those fuckers always did, be they generals or business leaders; anyone who liked being some kind of commander or leader. He would bet good money that the Shenzhen’s Captain Peter Falkenstein had a home away from home there.
Daniel gently shook Hope awake.
“What’s up?” she asked. “It’s still dark.”
“Everything’s dark now,” Daniel muttered. “Come on, it’s time to pack. We have a flight in two hours.”
“Where to?”
Daniel paused for a moment, caught between the desire to tell her about his father’s offer, and to simply tell her where they were really going. “It’s a surprise. And it’ll be better for you than this place.”
Four
St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
Saint-Croix was the largest of the U.S. Virgin Islands, a jewel in the azure expanse of the Caribbean Sea, forty miles or so from Puerto Rico. “You’re going to like this, I think,” Daniel told Hope as they emerged from Henry E. Rohlsen Airport. The airport had been named after one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen of World War Two who’d been a native of the island, and Daniel noticed that Hope really liked that detail. He thought it was pretty cool himself.
He’d told Hope that the final stop of their itinerary on leave was to be a surprise, and he had kept her distracted so as to keep her from figuring out where he was taking her. He hated keeping even this kind of secret from her, but of course it was damn near impossible to truly keep a secret from someone who shared your very thoughts if they really wanted to know something.
“Wait,” Hope said, a little awed, “if we’re on Saint-Croix… are we going to the Buccaneer Resort?”
“That’s the one,” Daniel said, hailing a taxi. “The cabbie helped them load their bags, and Daniel opened the door for Hope. Once they were in the car, Daniel said to Hope, “Do you want to do the honors?”
Hope was grinning like a teenager. “The Buccaneer Hotel, please,” she told the cabbie.
“Sure,” the cabbie said, and they set off.