“Wait. What?” That caught Jack off guard. He thought he was just giving advice.
“Few of us have experience south of Egypt. We need someone who knows the land. Someone who knows how to survive there. You lead a force along the route you just drew and investigate. If the intel is good, then you establish a base of operations and start hitting the enemy where it hurts.”
“I… Can I have a little time to think about this?”
“Take a day if you like, but I already know what your answer will be. You’re the man for the job, and you know it. You were the one who told us to be bold, were you not?”
“I suppose so, sir.”
“And your trip-lines are still racking up enemy casualties. More walkers fall every week. You want to hurt these bastards, and I’d like to help you.”
“A day?”
“One day. Sleep on it.”
Jack wandered back outside, where Nikitin and Albright were waiting for him. “What was that all about, hero?” Albright asked.
“You get chewed out?”
“No. Ummm… The Colonel wants me to establish a base in Africa.”
Albright said, “Wow.”
Nikitin laughed. “Hot damn. You gonna do it?”
“I dunno,” Jack said, “but yeah, I think so.”
“About time,” Nikitin said. “I’m getting sick of this dried up hell hole. Be nice to see some greenery again.”
“Yeah.” Jack was still weighing the decision in his head. “It’s a lot, though. Isn’t it?”
Nikitin laughed. “Maybe. I’m just glad it’s not me.”
“You’re not alone in that,” Albright said.
“Smart mouth you got, little woman.” Nikitin was smiling. “Anyway… I’m gonna go scrounge up another dinner. Anyone care to join me?”
“Nah. I got some thinking to do,” Jack said.
Albright waved. “You’re on your own, pal. That last feeding frenzy of yours turned my stomach.”
“Fine. More for me.” With that, the lighthouse headed off toward the mess.
Jack started walking in no particular direction, and Albright pinned herself to his hip. “So tell me, why wouldn’t you do this?” she asked.
“I dunno,” Jack said. “It doesn’t seem real. I don’t even know how I got this far.”
“That’s easy. As long as I’ve known you, you’ve had a talent for just two things, Jack — surviving, and getting people to follow you.”
“That’s crap. Only reason I ended up in charge of the Bravos was that no one else wanted the job.”
“Bullshit. Two months in the corps, and you were already telling the brigade leader what to do. And he did it. When the position opened up, no one else would touch it because they knew it was yours.”
He laughed. That cut closer to the truth than he was willing to admit.
“Face facts, Jack. If you march into hell, me, Leo and the others will follow you right on in. And you’ll bring us out alive. It’s what you do.”
He heard something in her voice that he hadn’t noticed before, and he turned to look at her. The months of hardship had taken their toll, and she’d become cold and calculating in a way Jack never could have expected. But beneath that, stars were glimmering distantly in her eyes.
The realization didn’t prepare him for what came next. Lisa Albright grabbed Jack’s collar, tugged his face down to hers, and she kissed him.
Her lips were warm and soft and sweet. Her mouth was tender, and for an instant, Jack was lost. For an instant, he was kissing Jess back on a rainy day in San Jose.
He pulled away but stayed close, with his eyes closed and her hot breath breaking on his lip. His own breaths were heavy, and his heart was beating against his chest. “I can’t,” he whispered.
“I know,” she said. One of her hands was on his chest, and he was sure she could feel the thumping beneath. “You’re still mending that broken heart of yours, but someday it’s gonna heal. I’ll be here when it does.”
He was speechless. She knew him a little too well.
Lisa Albright left another gentle kiss on his lips, then turned and walked away. “I’ll see you in the morning, hero.”
Jack vaguely recalled that he had to make some kind of decision, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what it was.
Chapter 33:
Tin Can
”…and that was the third time I got crabs. I haven’t returned to Maui since, and now chances for a future visit look bleak, for obvious reasons.”
Nils Jansen took a moment to scratch his thick beard. His razor still worked just fine, but he’d lost the will to shave three months before, around the time he and the other two men aboard Copernicus Observatory were supposed to run out of supplies and starve to death. They didn’t starve, partly because of intelligent rationing, and partly because they ate everything even remotely edible, including their shaving cream. Besides, he thought the shaggy beard was appropriate to the predicament.
He clicked the mouth piece on again. “That blackened mess currently on screen is Korea, as seen at night from a great altitude. Our viewers at home might have noticed it basically looks like a… well, a shapeless blob of land. Most peninsulas in fact look similar from great altitudes at night, and one could easily mistake Korea for Italy, Florida or the Yucatan. This blob is however notable, because… because my software says it’s Korea. Now, I’ve never been there myself, but I hear it’s just peachy. Or was, at some point in the not terribly distant past.”
Marco was on the other side of the command center, bouncing a tennis ball against the window over and over again, and Hopkins had curled up in a corner to read. They’d all lost a lot of weight, but Hopkins still eerily resembled a pilot whale. He looked suspiciously like dinner, actually. Jansen shook that idea out of his head.
“I thought the third time you got crabs was in Maine,” Marco said.
“No. I caught lobster off the coast of Maine. Idiot.”
“Oh. You understand my mistake.”
Jansen took a sip of water out of his bottle. The station’s filtration system was beginning to fail, and the water’s flavor was becoming difficult to ignore. Musky. He chose not to think about what it tasted like.
Marco missed his ball on the rebound, and went chasing after it. “Ever been to Cape Cod, Nils?”
“No, but I’ve had vodka and cranberry juice.”
“I always wanted to go there. Just once,” Marco said. “It was a dream. I figure sailing around New England is like the best thing in the world.”
Jansen watched the darkened Earth beneath them. They’d passed Japan already and were now over the Pacific Ocean. “I’ve done some sailing. It’s not all that.”
“I’m not talking about wind surfing at an island resort with a bunch of drunk hookers. I mean real sailing. On a sloop. Racing in a fancy regatta with the wind in my hair, a white sweater tied around my neck and a glass of red wine in my hand.”
“Wow,” Jansen said. “Just wow. Something really weird musta happened to you as a child.”
“Is it that strange?”
“Uh, yeah.”
Jansen clicked the mouth piece. “And that brings us to tonight’s question… what makes a man dream of sailing the coast of New England? Joining us here in the Radio Free Copernicus studio is closet sailor, Marco Esquivel. Marco, are the rumors true? Do you think about the Massachusetts shore while you masturbate?”
“Screw off, Nils.”
“Riveting show,” Hopkins said.
“How about you, Hop? Any secret fantasies about cutting a jib?”
“Nope. Can’t stand the ocean. I dream about cutting your throat sometimes, though.”
“Zing!”
Right as Jansen started to laugh, there was a strange noise. It was a loud thunk, as if something had collided with the station. It sounded like someone docking.
“What the hell was that?”
“Not sure, but it can’t be good.” Jansen pulled out a metal rod
that he’d carefully sharpened to a fine point. He’d planned to kill Hopkins with it when the last of their rations ran out. He was going to slide it between the vertebrae at the base of the whale-man’s neck, killing him instantly. Jansen didn’t like Hopkins much, but he at least owed him a quick death.
He wasn’t surprised to see Marco and Hopkins with shivs of their own.
“Should we take cover,” Hopkins asked in a stage whisper.
“No. Full frontal assault,” Marco said. “You go out ahead, and we’ll be right behind you.”
“It never fucking ends with you two,” Hopkins said, exasperated.
Jansen ducked behind his console. “Don’t talk like that, my cetacean friend. Everything ends. In fact, I bet yer gonna die real soon.”
There were a couple of loud pops, followed by a crackling noise. The acrid stench of ozone filled the air.
“Whatever happens,” Jansen said, “I want you sons of bitches to know I hate you both.”
“Same.”
“Ditto.”
There was a whine of metal shearing, followed by a gong-like-clang and then silence. Hopkins and Marco both found their own hiding spots evenly spaced around the room.
Then they heard the approach. Something moved through the inside of the station, pawing at the guide rails and scraping along the walls. All three men had been aboard Copernicus so long that each noise gave them new information, told them what bulkhead the invaders were passing and how quickly they were progressing.
The monsters split up at the habitation hub, while one headed toward the command center alone. A mistake. The alien bastard was going to be easy prey.
Jansen’s head suddenly filled with twisted fantasies. He imagined killing the invasion party one by one, stalking them like animals in the wild before sinking his shiv deep into their skulls. Then he’d commandeer the enemy ship and return to Earth, where the surviving humans would give him a hero’s welcome. With the captured alien technology, the resistance could craft new weapons and finally turn the tides of war back on their oppressors. Eventually, months or maybe years later, they would drive the enemy from their planet once and for all, and Nils Jansen would be immortalized with a marble statue the size of a skyscraper, which people would revere and worship for all time.
A bright light emerged from the shaft, and Jansen blasted back into the present. The thing’s lamp was so bright that he couldn’t make out the shape of it. How many arms did it have? Did its jaw gape open like a snake’s? Was it covered in breasts?
The creature floated out into the middle of the command center and Jansen’s moment had arrived. He wheeled into position, put his feet against the wall and pushed off, screaming, “Die you alien bastard!”
Shiv in hand, he hurtled through the air, slobbering with fury as he went. The thing’s lamp turned toward him and shined him in the eyes, but he would not be deterred. He neared his target and thrust his weapon forward, only to stab at open air.
The creature had evaded his strike like a Spanish matador taunting a bull, but the tactic only stoked Jansen’s anger. He twisted around and prepared to launch himself off the next wall, then finally got a good look at the invader.
It was a man in a standard white GAF pressure suit. The light came from his helmet lamp, and he was waving his arms around spastically.
“What in tarnation?” Jansen asked, and briefly wondered what or where ‘tarnation’ was.
The suited man unlatched his helmet and pulled it off, revealing a wonderfully familiar face.
“Mason?”
Mason Shen had a silly grin, but it quickly faded to a look of total disgust. “Oh man, it stinks in here.”
“Mason, is that you? I’m hallucinating. I’m just imagining you, right?”
“Nope. You’re not imagining me, but I wish you were. Jesus almighty is it foul.”
“Sorry,” Marco said, “our subscription to Good Housekeeping ran out a couple weeks ago.”
“I don’t understand,” Jansen said, “how are you here? Did Donovan bring the Shackleton back?”
“The Shackleton? That bucket is long gone, buddy. We’re here testing out Faulkland’s new ship, Phoenix. Listen, it’s a long story, and I’d like to do as little breathing in here as possible. Why don’t we get out of this stink pit, hop back in the skiff and get you guys a shave and a shower?”
“That sounds nice,” Marco said.
Hopkins was already floating dreamily toward the shaft.
Jansen went back to his console and clicked on the mouth piece one last time. “Due to unexpected developments, it appears that Radio Free Copernicus will be going off the air. I’d just like to take a moment to thank our long time listeners. To all of our supporters out there in radio land, thanks for listening during this long strange journey, and keep on truckin’.”
“Are you done?” Mason asked.
“Completely. Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
Chapter 34:
Peeping Tom
Jack knew Uganda and Kenya well enough, and he thought he was pretty well acquainted with the Congo rainforest too, but things change. The Earth was now one of those things. The dense jungle had been supplanted by a new environment. A complete alien biosphere. The invaders hadn’t just colonized; they were transforming the Earth into a different world altogether.
Near the alien city, green jungle gave way to a strange twisting growth of orange and purple. The branches of alien trees joined together and intertwined in a latticework, making it impossible to gauge where one plant ended and the next began. They formed distinct levels suspended above the ground that Jack and his team traveled across with ease.
The wildlife was overtaken as well. The team saw plenty of native animals on the shores of Lake Edward, including hippos, elephants, crocodiles and even some okapi, but as they ventured deep into the alien world, they found creatures like nothing from Earth. Strange things with tendrils surrounding their mouths and multiple sets of wings flapped erratically overhead, while furry little beasts with arms ending in long hooks and too many eyes swung from branch to branch. The ground below was scavenged by a strange, sedate animal with leathery skin, which crawled around on five human-like arms, and devoured bugs it found with a long snout. It occasionally let out a call that sounded just like a poorly tuned bassoon.
The only natives curious enough to enter the strange world were Jack’s team and the occasional band of chimpanzees, both of whom avoided the forest floor and anything not of their world. The passing chimps would sometimes stop to watch Jack and his crew move from cover to cover, before taking off for some other destination.
A few kilometers into the obnoxiously colored forest, they finally found what they were looking for. The forest thinned and came to a halt, giving way to delicately arranged gardens and crop fields of yet more alien plants, and another half-kilometer beyond sat an impossibly large alien fortress in cerulean blue. It stood exactly where the maps had indicated. The great disc-shaped city was twenty kilometers in diameter, and sat above the ground atop a jumble of roots which dove into the soil below.
The body of the disc was split open like a fruiting mushroom, revealing an interconnected network of gills, stalks and bulbs within. The inside was its own kind of forest, one overflowing with activity as its denizens went about their daily business. All of this was hidden from the sun beneath the top part of the disc, an umbrella-shaped cap whose inside glowed like an immense street lamp.
“That’s a city?” Nikitin asked in awe.
Charlie nodded. “Is it really that different than Manhattan?”
“Yeah. Looks like something you find growing in your sock.”
Jack raised his binoculars and tried to take it all in, but there was just too much to absorb. Charlie was right in a way. The details were foreign, but the shape was the same. It was a living city, with its own congested traffic and bustling neighborhoods. Jack could only see the very edge of it, but he could tell there was a lot going on inside.
&nbs
p; Charlie started snapping pictures through his visor, while Jack brainstormed ways to get a closer look. They weren’t going to learn anything useful from the park across the street. He wanted to get into the backyard, or maybe break into the basement if he could.
“I can’t figure it out. How the hell do we get in?” Jack asked.
“I dunno,” Lisa said. “Anyone remember to bring an armor division?”
Nikitin snapped his finger in mock disappointment. “Drat! Left it in my other pants.”
“Yeah, yeah, yuck it up,” Jack said dryly. He wondered why he was always stuck with such smart mouths.
“Usually, you just do like the Romans do.”
“Nice thinking, Charlie,” Nikitin said. “Should we do like the four-armed Romans, or the six-armed ones that float?”
“Point taken.”
The team moved on when Charlie was done taking pictures, keeping to the thick bush at the edges of the alien civilization. They didn’t move particularly fast, and the circle around the city was over sixty kilometers in circumference, so it began to feel like they weren’t getting anywhere.
They got better views of the crops and the creatures tending them. Fields were laid out in rows, filled with unfamiliar plants. Agriculture had never been Jack’s strong suit, and he thought most vegetables looked kind of alien to begin with, so the fields were at best unsurprising. Of more interest were the creatures tilling the fields, which looked like short, squat versions of the walkers, but with large blades they dragged through the soil. Jack imagined they were also vehicles driven by the skinny white pilots.
The team stopped after a klick, and something in the distance caught Charlie’s eye. He flipped down his mask and dialed up his optics. “Hey, how about Romans in hooded robes?”
Jack brought his binoculars back up, and he could just barely make out a small group headed out from the city. There were eight of them walking in single-file, dressed in graphite-colored hooded robes, like futuristic Franciscan monks. “Well, I’ll be damned,” Jack said.
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