by Wearmouth
Dust settled, and surrounding trees gently rocked to a halt, leaves brightly glistening with a greasy sheen.
A hand rested on Gregor’s shoulder. He flinched and turned, feeling for his gun.
Alex and Layla stood behind him.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that,” he said.
“We need to talk, Gregor. Things are happening, strange things,” Layla said. “One of the croatoans grabbed me by the hair after the booby trap. I haven’t seen them behave like that before.”
Gregor shrugged. “You should have told me about that. I had to learn about it from Augustus.”
“You were already in with him when she got back,” Alex said. “We were waiting till he left.”
“If you want to know about strange things, you should have been in my office when Augustus took off his mask.”
“What did he look like?” Layla said.
Gregor ran his fingers down his cheeks. “Like he’d been bobbing for apples in acid.”
He started walking back to his office. Layla tugged at his sweater. “I meant what I said. Something’s going down; we need to talk.”
“Talk in my office. I’ve also had some news.” Gregor glanced through the trees toward the chocolate factory as he led the two women away. Three croatoans were testing a large anti-gravity trailer at the back of the warehouse. It hovered three feet in the air. One alien balanced on top of it. The other two stood at either end, moving it around in a circle.
Gregor led the way through his front door, closing it behind Alex and Layla, twisting the key and securing the bolt. He peered through the window blinds before pulling them shut.
“Augustus wants us to double our land conversion stats. We’ve got a few days to do it,” he said.
“How are we supposed to that?” Alex said.
Gregor sat in his chair and poured a whiskey. “I don’t see a way. We bent over backward to meet the current targets. The new goal came attached with a threat.”
“Jesus. What?”
“You don’t want to know. Layla, any bright ideas?”
Layla looked down, rubbing her chin. She moved across to a chart on the office wall and placed her finger on an area north east of their current location. “This is all former farmland. We concentrate here for the next few weeks. Progress will be quicker as the woodland is less dense. I’m not saying it’ll double the conversion, but if we focus on these type of areas …”
“It’ll catch up with us,” Alex said. “At some stage, we’ll be left with thick forest and cities. Then what?”
“I’m just providing a short-term solution. Last week, I mapped the individual harvester statistics to the old charts. If we want to meet Augustus’s short-term targets, this is how we do it. When we get the damaged one from today repaired, we send it to start on the forest. Okay?”
Short-term, long term, it didn’t matter to Gregor. As long as he could keep the plates spinning. He downed his whisky and slammed the glass on the table. “Makes sense. Can you work on this together and send the new coordinates to the harvester drivers?”
“Leave it with us,” Alex said. “I’ll have the instructions sent out tonight.”
The thought of Alex and Layla working together pleased Gregor. Both seemed to have a mutual dislike for each other since meeting ten years ago. The time hadn’t managed to bring about a thaw, unlike the croatoans’ weather control.
Alex was long-serving and loyal. Friends from the pre-alien days were at a premium. Layla had provided him with yet another solution to keep the wolf from the door. Without her, he could have been hanging on a butcher’s hook.
His thoughts turned to Marek. With Augustus out of the way and the new directive in place, it was all hands on deck. A safe and justifiable time to release his old friend.
“Alex. You’re in charge of the ground team again. Marek’s back as my number two,” Gregor said. He brushed the blonde to one side and unlocked the door. “I’ll leave you two to it. Let me know if you have any problems. I don’t like looking clueless in front of that masked bastard.”
“Gregor, wait, they’re up to something,” Layla said.
“Who? The croatoans? They’re always up to something.”
“Not just the quotas. Have you noticed there’s more of them in the warehouses? Numbers have doubled in the chocolate factory. The equipment they’re bringing down too. I’m telling you, this is more than usual operations.”
“They come and go. So what if they have a new floating platform or funny device?”
Alex stepped toward him and said with a genuine look of sincerity, “She’s got a point. It’s not just because of today; it’s been going on the past two weeks. They’re not communicating with us either.”
Gregor paused for a moment. He couldn’t deny that things were changing, but for the sake of survival, they had to concentrate on what would work for them. Worrying over alien experiments or motives wouldn’t help. Meeting the targets and keeping the livestock healthy and fit for consumption would.
“Do some digging. See what you can find out,” he said.
As he left the office, Gregor gazed at sky. It started to turn a gentle orange during the hours of dusk and dawn over a year ago, perhaps two. It became more accentuated as they covered larger swathes of the continent with the initial planting of croatoan crops.
Gregor heaved up the metal garage door, wincing as it screeched on its rusty mechanism like giant nails running along a chalkboard.
Marek peered through the dim light, twisting his shoulders against the bound rope around his upper torso. “Gregor, you’ve come to see me.”
“It’s over, my friend. You’re back as my number two.”
“Why did you do it? You know you can trust me.”
Gregor picked up a knife from the table on the right-hand side of the garage and jabbed it toward Marek. “It was an act to keep you alive. Do you think Augustus liked the fact that you’d been captured and interrogated by the little wasp?”
“You could have told me,” Marek said.
“And let Augustus’s aliens beat that information out of you? We’d both be dead. I’m sorry, you have to understand.”
“We need to put a stop to Jackson once and for all. He’s going to get us killed.”
“They’re sending down a resource called a hunter to end him.”
“A hunter?”
“Probably one of those croatoans they used in battle.”
Gregor slipped the blade underneath the rope and used the serrated edge to saw through it, making quick work of the frayed braid. He passed Marek the knife to release his ankles from the legs of the chair.
“I heard Igor talking to Augustus outside the garage a few hours ago. Couldn’t quite tell what they were saying,” Marek said.
“Igor’s slyer than a fox,” Gregor said. He resisted the urge to kick the table and pulled Marek to his feet. “If he’s colluding with Augustus, I need to know what they’re discussing. We’ll do it first thing tomorrow morning. Tonight, you get a whiskey and a comfortable bed.”
Marek unsteadily shuffled toward the door. He flung his arm around Gregor to stop himself falling. Gregor wrapped his arm around Marek’s back and started leading him to his office.
A faint roar echoed overhead. Gregor glanced up into the darkening sky. A bright light shot across it like a shooting star although the trajectory was more deliberate. It was arcing down from the mother ship toward Earth. He tried to recall the last time he saw a croatoan fighter.
Chapter Sixteen
The screeching sound of a bird startled Ben.
A cold sweat had soaked his clothes, making him shiver in the dark. Sleep had evaded him, coming in shallow, brief moments, lulling his subconscious into a semi-awake state. Daydreams lingered like memories lost to time
, their residue remaining, pointing to something substantial but ultimately out of reach.
Ben turned over and reached out his hand to switch off the phantom alarm clock. His arm moved on instinct, a behavior burrowed into his muscles from years on the ship. And there, the phantasm of truth glared bright in his mind.
He wasn’t on the ship.
The place was dark and cold, and the sounds of others snoring reminded him that he lay ten feet under the ground in a tomb dug out by Charlie and Denver. The dampness of the blanket beneath him transferred the coolness of the soil.
Worms, insects, beetles, and things far worse than his imagination could conjure no doubt crawled beneath him, waiting to devour him, bring his energy to the soil.
Sitting up with a startled breath, he clawed his way forward in the dark, desperate to escape. The cold, pressing confines of the shelter making him gasp for air. Fresh air.
Ethan and Maria were pressed tightly together to his right, their bodies warm to his touch as their chests moved rhythmically with their quiet breath.
Charlie lay to his left. He snored loud and long, the slumber of someone who had grown up with this, someone who had chosen this over acquiescence with the croatoans. The sleep of the confident.
Ben wondered if he would ever have that inner peace again in a world where it was he that felt alien.
Dirt compacted beneath his fingers. He continued to crawl forward until eventually, with out-stretching hands, he found the wooden ladder.
Above him would be his escape, his freedom.
It was only as he climbed the ladder leading to steps cut in the earth and pushed the cover of leaves away that he realized Denver was missing from the shelter. Pip too.
Cool air wicked away the sweat on his brow, and his lungs felt the chill of pre-dawn air. The scene before him was a de-saturated landscape; the monochromatic touch of the moon delineated the outline of the leaves and trunks.
An excited yip from beyond the tree line of the copse caught his attention. Through the foliage, he could see the slick, oily surface of a river, the silver light creating specular reflections as the breeze manipulated the water.
But the breeze was not the only instigator.
Moving closer, treading carefully across the loamy, damp ground, Ben pushed through between two wide trees until he stood on the threshold. A dark shape sat at the river’s edge.
Ben watched as the figure lifted what looked like a medieval crossbow, pointed it into the darkness beyond the river, and fired a near-silent bolt. Only the twang of the wire and the thunk of the bolt hitting its target made any noise.
A rustling came then. Pip’s tail wagged within the tall grass, the white tip catching the half-light. The dog disappeared for a moment and returned with a small creature in its mouth. She crossed a tree trunk that had fallen across the river and dropped the prize at the shape’s feet.
Ben stepped forward.
“Can’t sleep?” the voice from the dark shape said, confirming to Ben that it was Denver. The young man didn’t turn around as he pulled a small hunting knife from his jacket and made a series of straight cuts across his catch. “Don’t just hang around there behind me. You make a man suspicious.”
“Sorry.” Wrapping his arms around his body to retain the heat, Ben stepped forward until he saw what Denver was working on: field dressing a rabbit. In front of him, a rack made from twigs held half a dozen fish and three skinned and gutted rabbits.
“Breakfast,” Denver said, his voice like a cold growl. “I don’t sleep much either. Sit down; you’re making me nervous, hanging over me like that.”
“Sorry.”
“And stop apologizing. You don’t have anything to apologize for. I get it,” Denver said as he placed the skinned rabbit on the rack. “This is quite the change of lifestyle for you and the others. I’d be freaked out too.”
“I don’t want to be here,” Ben said. “I just want to go back, work on the ship. I was safe there.”
Denver turned to face him. His pale skin seemed entirely without color beneath the pre-dawn starlight. “Really? What do you think happened to those that came before you? You think they’re enjoying retirement? That’s what you were told, wasn’t it? All those tuition videos you had to watch, telling you how you were heading for a new planet, how you’d do your job and you’d get to retire in a life of comfort.”
Unable to stand his glare any longer, Ben turned his head, trying not to think of Jimmy and Erika. Deep down, he knew that’s what retirement meant.
“They recycle you. Did you know that?”
“What do you mean?”
“They use us as food source, a labor force, lab rats. They see us as nothing more than animals designed to further their cause. We are rabbits.”
“Food source?” Ben said, “What do you mean exactly?”
“They farm us. We’re just protein and nutrients after all. Stick us in a meat-processor, and we’re no different than beef or chicken. On the harvesters, when your shift is done and they retire you, you go to the unit. Those silver trays of food they give to you …”
“No,” Ben said, standing up, shaking his head. “They wouldn’t do that … That’s … I can’t believe it.”
“That’s your problem,” Denver said. “Believe or don’t believe, it doesn’t change the situation, does it? They’re still here. They’re still changing the planet, it’s just a matter of time now.”
“Changing how?” Ben asked.
“You’ve seen the air, the water, the land. That orange root compound is getting into everything. It’s what’s in the aliens’ backpack and respiratory system: a gas made from the compound. They can’t breathe our air unaided. Well, for now anyway. The atmosphere will soon be right for them.”
“And then what?”
Denver didn’t say anything as he stood up and stretched his arms.
“Denver, what’s going to happen?”
“What do you care, Ben? You’re not really with us, are you? I can tell you don’t want to be out here, surviving. You want to go back, don’t you?”
A flush of shame and truth warmed Ben’s cheeks even as he turned away. “I don’t know what I want. It’s all just so much to take in.”
Denver put a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “I know it’s difficult. What if I could give you a third option? You can’t go back to the harvesters, and you’re clearly not cut out to stay here. I won’t lie; it’s a tough life in the wild. I’ve seen dozens of people just give up, give in, unable to adapt. But there’s one other course for someone like you.”
“What do you have in mind?” A mix of fear and hope swirled in Ben’s guts, but there was something in Denver’s eyes that told him it wasn’t going to be an easy option, but then he believed nothing was going to be easy again.
“Work for us. On the inside. Help us get these fuckers off our planet for good.”
“It sounds dangerous,” Ben said, slumping his shoulders as the hope died before it even had time to blossom. “What do you mean work for you?”
“Sit down. Have a drink. I’ll explain everything.”
Denver indicated a log. He had a tin can of water that was steaming from an earlier boiling. The glowing remnants of a fire sparkled within a mound of leaves and twigs.
Ben sat down and received the warm cup from Denver. “Thanks.” He took a sip and screwed up his face at the bitter taste, but he still drank, quenching the thirst of spending the night in the underground shelter. “What is it?”
“Root compound. We learned how to extract the active ingredient. It’ll make you feel better,” Denver said.
“Is this why your father is still in such good shape? How old is he anyway?”
Pip came over to Ben and lay down on the warm ground in front of the log, resting her head on Ben’s
foot. Denver patted the dog and looked up at Ben.
“Dad’s fifty-eight this year and is probably fitter than I am. He had to be. He’s one of the very few to have survived the ice age and the thaw. He saw it all. Even fought in the people’s militia during the initial struggles when the croatoans came up from the earth. Later, they came from space, overwhelmed the population, and Dad had to go in hiding with the other survivors.”
“How long was the ice age for? What brought it on?”
“Twenty years. We believe it was the first part of the croatoans’ terraforming process. They had this huge mother ship that altered the atmosphere, changed the world’s temperature. Dad reckons it was preparing the lands to grow the root they so desperately need. When the thaw came, the trees and vegetation grew rapidly as did the root, which is why they’re now harvesting it.”
“So about this other option,” Ben said. “What is it you want me to do?”
Denver pointed to the west back toward the forest. “There’s a farm back there, a few miles from your harvester. You can go there. They’ll take you in.”
“Is it run by the aliens?”
Denver shook his head. “No, someone far worse. A betrayer of humankind. A jumped-up gangster from pre-ice age days. He got in with the croatoans early, selling out his own kind. Gregor runs the farm on their behalf and manages the harvesters.”
“That’s why you attacked it? Revenge?”
“Vengeance? No, that doesn’t even scratch the surface. Gregor and Dad go way back. They’ve been fighting since the start. The more pressure we can put on Gregor with his harvesting quotas, the more pressure the croatoans will put on him to meet his targets. If he can’t, then … Well, he’ll become livestock for all those poor bastards in the farm.”
Ben was starting to get the picture. The thought of a human farming others of his kind as livestock turned his stomach. How could he work for something like that? How was that any better than being out in the wild?