She starts her story, tentatively, unsure how many details to tell. Beginning with her role as a student and the growing friendship with Ryan and Jon, she starts safely. But by the time he sets a plate of crispy bacon and fluffy eggs down in front of her, she is beginning to describe the protest and their subsequent flight through the campus. When they had been hiding, it had not seemed right to spend time reliving the story together. They had, after all, just lived it. Now that she has a kind ear who is willing to listen, she finds the story tumbling out between mouthfuls of food.
Chapter 17
The Capital
Suburban Avenue
The street is quiet. It is midday in a suburban neighborhood. The morning traffic of people headed to work and school has faded, and the afternoon rush has not yet begun, leaving the broad tree-lined avenue deserted except for the lone government-issue vehicle parked in the shade of one of the trees. The sunlight filters through the branches and glints intermittently into the eyes of the man in the formal military uniform seated behind the wheel.
The man is filled with trepidation as he stares out the window of the vehicle at the crisply cut lawn and brightly painted trim of one of the houses on the street. Within that house, the wife of the man he respects and has grown to love is going about her day, probably playing with her granddaughter, unaware that he is outside with bad news resting heavily on his shoulders. His mind wanders back nearly fifteen years to the first time he met her.
Like today, the trees along the avenue seemed stately and mature, the houses each neat and tidy. It was peaceful as his polished shoes clicked up the concrete path to the front door, each step leaving a faint imprint in the dew as he walked. At the door, he straightened his new uniform and adjusted the new, larger insignia on his lapel before reaching for the doorbell. It was his first day as the aide to a newly appointed general, and his orders from Central Command were to pick the general up from his house and drive him to headquarters for their briefing regarding their new assignment.
The chill in the early autumn air had left his knuckles cold enough that when he rapped on the door, he felt the sting.
Inside a dog barked, and he could hear a woman’s voice shouting something from a distant room. The dog managed to arrive at the door first, having sprinted from its bed in the upstairs hall, but she was only a few seconds behind. Through the thick wood, he could hear her more clearly ordering the dog back from the door. Her voice was firm with a ring of command, yet he could detect a gentleness even through the door.
Once she had calmed the dog enough to crack the door, he came face to face with the woman who would become in many ways a second mother to him. She had greeted him graciously and effortlessly despite being noticeably in the middle of her own morning routine, buying her husband the time he needed to finish donning his new uniform. Since that day, each time he had knocked on that door she had greeted him as if he were family, with a smile, yet today he knows that smile is not going to last.
Willing himself from his reverie, he opens the car door and crosses the street. Today the air is crisp as he walks up the path, just enough to give a small bite to each breath but not so cold that the sun does not feel warm on his back.
When he reaches the door and raises his hand to knock, he pauses. The door is slightly ajar, not enough to see inside but enough that he can tell the latch is not engaged. Something doesn’t feel right about the situation, so he draws his pistol and slowly eases the door open with his left hand. The door glides easily on well-oiled hinges, but as it swings open, it reveals a piece of the splintered door jamb lying on the floor. Beyond it, a vase of flowers that once stood on a small table in the hallway is scattered across the rich carpet.
Moving slowly in a half crouch, his weapon partially raised, he notes large boot prints tracking across the floor and heading towards the back of the house. As he travels deeper into his boss’s house, he notes the quiet sound of voices and a flickering light coming from the kitchen at the end of the hall.
Cautiously he pokes his head around the corner and spies the source of the light: a daytime program in which the hosts are busy cooking some holiday dish in a needlessly complicated and dialogued way. Other than the images projected on the screen, his quick glance reveals no other signs of movement, so he advances slowly again, leading with his pistol and frantically scanning the room. Halfway along the island containing the sink, he glances past the couch and almost misses it. His glance swings back before his brain registers what he is seeing.
“Mrs. Long! Barb!” he cries. Forgetting his cautious approach, he dashes across the wood floor to her side. When he rounds the corner of the couch, he nearly falls as his foot slips in the pool of blood spreading slowly from her body. He skids to a stop, grabbing the couch for stability, which is when he looks up at the other side of the living area.
Sitting upright in a chair across from the couch, picture book clasped in her hands and head bowed as if sleeping, is the general’s granddaughter. She would look innocent and cheerful, the thought trundles through his mind, if it weren’t for the two holes in her chest and the red stain marring the bright yellow paisley pajamas she is wearing.
His legs give out, and he drops to the ground. Kneeling in the blood coating the floor, he stares dumbfounded at the scene before him.
* * *
Down the block in another government-issued vehicle, another man, this one wearing a suit, not the uniform of a military officer, sits carefully watching the seconds tick by on his analog watch. Figuring enough time has passed since the aide entered the house, he flips the cover off the switch held in his other hand, and, without ceremony, presses the button underneath.
For a split second, the entire pleasant avenue is lit in sharp relief before the shockwave expands outward, tearing branches off trees and shattering windows as the house that Phillip and Barbra Long had called home for thirty years is converted into soot, ash, and a fireball climbing high into the sky.
The man in the government car is far enough away that his windows are spared the brunt of the blast, but the pressure wave forces him to swallow uncomfortably to clear a stuffiness in his ears before activating the automated dialer in his car. After two rings, the line connects but remains silent.
“It would seem the General Phillip Long’s heroic story just took a tragic turn. His aide, distraught by his exclusion from the general’s mission, murdered the poor general’s wife and granddaughter before taking his own life and destroying their home using explosives he stole from a military base.” The man talks calmly into the empty cabin of his vehicle as he drives sedately out of the suburb. With his report finished, the line clicks off, and he flips on the radio to drown out the wail of approaching sirens. He smiles at the song that is playing and starts to hum along.
Chapter 18
Space
Mountain Stronghold
It has been almost a week since their unplanned departure, and if Gavitte is completely honest with himself, the novelty of spaceflight has begun to wear off. Admittedly the few hours that he and Angelina have found together have been wonderful, and the low gravity has opened up an entirely new frontier of possibilities. He smiles as he remembers last night when they had finally snuck off together. She had fit perfectly within his embrace, using his arm as a pillow. It had been the best two hours of sleep either of them had ever had. Yet the seemingly endless days dashing between emergencies as their previously earthbound facility converts to its new environment have begun to wear him down.
Gavitte lets the blissful memories fade as the tunnel he is walking down approaches an intersection. Another busy day seems to await him. Having no skills particularly useful to their survival or the scientific exploration of their new situation, Gavitte has carved out a niche for himself trying to streamline the hectic work of everyone else. Up ahead, he can hear yelling and smell steam mixed with oil emanating from the larger tunnel he is about to walk into. It looks like there has been a wrinkle in the coordination.
<
br /> It seems that two of the old mining transports, which had somehow managed to stay operational through the military’s use of the facility and now the Resistance’s, have collided and are sitting in the middle of the tunnel venting steam like two squat tea kettles. Due to the lower gravity, the drivers were driving faster than they are used to. And with the amount of foot traffic crowding around them, both drivers assumed the other would yield, allowing them to press on and deliver whatever was desperately needed in some other part of the base. Neither gave up the right of way and as neither was able to phase out of existence long enough for the other to pass they are now smashed together as if by some petulant giant.
Gavitte jogs up, surveying the crowd to make sure there are no injuries. Seeing that the crowd for the most part is only mildly interested in the collision itself and is more interested in pushing past it, he approaches the two drivers who are absorbed in cursing at each other.
“Guys, guys, calm down,” Gavitte tries, raising his hands in a placating gesture as he steps between them. Neither pays him any heed, so he tries something he learned watching Angelina chastise her newest recruits. “Hey, stop it, now!”
His voice rings out in the stone tunnel, cutting the argument off mid-sentence and causing the tightly packed people to stutter in surprise as they walk past. Both drivers look at him, red in the face from yelling at each other, and are about to turn their frustrations on him when he calmly raises his hands once more, cutting them off.
“I don’t care how it happened, nor do I care whose fault it is. You have supervisors who will want to know why their transports are damaged. All I care about is getting this tunnel cleared so the next transport through here doesn’t rear end one of you,” Gavitte says, making sure to lock both drivers with a piercing glare. “There is a service depot off a side tunnel a little ways down that direction. Let’s get these vehicles separated and moved there so they can be repaired.”
With minimal sullen glares at Gavitte, the two drivers climb back into their vehicles and try to separate them. The vehicle farthest from the service station refuses to start despite the stream of fresh curses the driver showers on it. Noticing a squad of soldiers in the crowd behind the vehicle, interrupted from their morning run by the obstruction, Gavitte enlists them to push the transport, even lending a hand himself. The massive vehicle rolls fairly easily in the reduced gravity, but still Gavitte overhears the men and women around him grumbling. Likely if they knew he was sleeping with their commanding officer and was on his way to a meeting with General Lampard, the supreme commander himself, they might guard their tongues more closely. Fortunately for Gavitte, they don’t recognize him and they talk freely as they push.
“I know I didn’t sign up for no space mission,” the man on Gavitte’s left says. “Just trying to keep my nephew out of jail. We ended up on the run. Now I’m a hostage on some stupid flying rock, and he’s back on Earth with only that hare-brained scouting squad of his to look after him.”
“You’re just upset ’cause you don’t think you’re going to get to kill any more feds,” a woman responds. “They’lI come after us, don’t you worry. Can’t lose all these honorable, tax-paying folks to some hostage situation.”
The men and women pushing the transport, even Gavitte, laugh at the morbid truth of it. They will come, as fast as they can, but there will not be a rescue. Of course one will be attempted, but tragically all will be lost, probably including the troops sent on the mission. Of course a select few, whose loyalty is completely proven, will survive to tell the tale of heroics across all the news broadcasts.
“I’m just saying, we Johnstons aren’t made for flying. Two feet on the earth and a horizon as far as the eye can see in each direction, that’s what I want,” the man next to Gavitte grouches. “If I’d wanted to be cooped up with no idea where I was going, I would have joined the navy.”
“Johnston, Parsons. Shut up,” the sergeant, a short red-faced man on Gavitte’s other side barks. “If Commander Badon asks you to jump, all I want to hear you say is ‘how high?’ And if she says we’re being taken into space on the harebrained whim of some ancient alien computer, all I want to hear is ‘yes ma’am.’”
“Yes sir,” the two chastised soldiers chorus.
By this point they’ve pushed the transport to the service station, and the jumble of traffic in the main tunnel has begun to clear out. The sergeant forms up his troops before leading them off at an easy trot.
Gavitte nods in acceptance and wipes his hands on a proffered rag as the vehicle’s driver thanks him. With no more interaction than a vague smile, he continues on his way to the mess hall for a cup of coffee, hoping to banish the last few lingering cobwebs from the corners of his mind. Fortunately it is a short walk, and checking his watch as he joins the end of the line, he figures he has enough time to actually sit down and savor the bitter brew.
With a scratched, chipped, and otherwise abused mug in hand, he wanders through the tables. Here he is recognized. The tables are full, primarily of the scientists whose fires he has spent the last several days putting out. As he passes table after table, the heads bowed in conversation lift up, and glaring eyes follow him until he is out of earshot. Eventually he finds a long table with room near one end. A group of physicists, who just yesterday he’d re-tasked to assist The Watcher in maintaining the environmental shielding, are huddled at the other end. Gavitte can just barely make out their conversation over the burbling of others talking.
“What’s going to happen when we stop accelerating?” one of the group asks. “It’s going to be anarchy, I tell you. Everything is going to be floating around. I’ve heard there have already been some nasty accidents, and what about the agriculture caves? Streams and heaps of manure don’t do well in zero-g.
“This was not planned well at all. General Lampard was just fine on the ground, but up here he is just clueless. Oh, and I heard that the bossy politician who joined up right before this whole thing started is sleeping with his second in command. What ever happened to separating the powers?”
“And what about our work?” another joins in. “We were starting to get somewhere on our project. Limitless free energy. That would have actually changed the world. Now we’re practically running the bilge pumps on a sieve.”
One of the crowd who was just sitting and nodding her head to the others happens to look up and see Gavitte at the other end of the table. She knocks her neighbor on the shoulder and points. He stops talking mid-sentence, and they all gather up their trays and hustle to dispose of their dirty dishes.
Gavitte frowns at his mug, swirling the contents to keep the particulates in suspension. Somehow the frustrations of the scientists are more worrisome for him than the grouching of the soldiers. One thing he’s learned from Angelina so far is that even commanders grumble when they think no one is listening. Somehow, though, he’d expected the community of scientists to be a little more excited about the prospects of their new mission.
Troubled by their conversation, Gavitte gives up on the bitter dregs in his mug and returns his cup to the revolving carousel, pretty sure that the half cup he didn’t drink is going to end up back in the tall silver urn from which it came.
The way to The Watcher’s chamber takes him down several levels and through a series of rarely used and exceptionally narrow tunnels. He is rounding one of the final bends and beginning to worry that he might have taken a wrong turn at the wye several passages ago when suddenly a siren comes echoing towards him accompanied by The Watcher’s amplified voice.
“All personnel report to battle stations. Hostile craft inbound. I repeat, hostile craft inbound. Report to battle stations.”
Chapter 19
Space
Rocket Fleet
General Long lies on his reclined couch allowing the gentle pressure of their acceleration to push him into the thin layer of contoured foam. The vibrations from the thundering rocket engines somewhere far beneath him are nearly unbearable. His teeth
feel like they are about to rattle free of his head and go tumbling down to the lower levels of the rocket. The portholes above him are blank, still covered by the shielding installed to protect the passengers from the assorted space junk whose impacts they would have been subjected to on their planned mission. However, now they only serve to block the general’s view. He knows that the approach has been pre-planned by central command and that all he has to do is give the symbolic attack command at the appropriate moment. He would still prefer to see the objective with his own eyes through the large observation ports though.
The capsule in which he and his new command staff are riding seems to have been destined to serve as an observatory post left in orbit. It is complete with its own small dormitory and common areas, which have been commandeered and filled with the appropriate trappings of a general’s field command post. However, other than for a brief photo shoot before they even took off, General Long has avoided them.
He is there to fulfill the requirement of some procedure, which states that a senior officer be present for all military actions involving more than one regiment. Well, that and the fact that someone wants him out of the way permanently. He did not play the game nearly as well as he needed to, but hopefully quietly following the orders he was given will buy his family the chance to fade quietly into some obscure corner of history.
The screen mounted to the bulkhead shows nothing but the occasional pin prick of a star. Only the descending readout of numbers in the corner marks their forward progress. In his mind, he keeps running through the possible things he can say to initiate the attack. The sound bite will be replayed across the news programs for at least one or two cycles, which means it is his chance to prove his understanding of the situation to his superiors and plead for a pardon for his family.
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