The Hive Invasion- The Complete Trilogy

by Jake Elwood

  "The Scepter and all its passengers are perfectly safe," Carruthers said. "We don't shoot down every ship that comes through."

  "That's not what the feeds have been saying," Roget said.

  Carruthers was abruptly tired of the foolish, timid man. "Well then, maybe you'd better go back through the Gate where you'll be safe from all these savage colonists."

  "Sorry!" Roget bleated. "It's just … Well, we've heard a lot of alarming stories."

  "Start moving toward Ariadne," Carruthers said. "We'll match velocities when you get close. We'll escort you in."

  "Okay," said Roget. "Moving now. Thank you."

  They sat down together in a conference room in Colonial Forces headquarters. Carruthers barely managed to talk his way in. The room was packed. Janice Ling stood near the door, data pad in hand, suddenly a reporter again instead of a soldier. The reporter from the Scepter stood beside her. Captain Roget sat at one end of the long conference table, his first officer and purser on either side. Ron Faraday sat at the opposite end of the table, surrounded by movers and shakers in the colony, along with a handful of ships' captains.

  "I don't know how much I can really tell you," Roget said, looking at the table. He had a way of glancing up briefly, quick flicks of his eyes before returning his gaze to the table. The size of the audience had him clearly intimidated. "News is pretty censored these days."

  "What's going on with the war?" Ron said. "What's happened with the aliens?"

  Roget shook his head. "Story keeps changing," he said. "One day it's a glorious victory. Every alien's dead, and it's all because of Acton." His lip curled. "Next day, the aliens are getting stronger and all that got destroyed was an outpost." The corners of his mouth twitched in a hint of a grin. "The word on the dark feeds is, he needs the aliens still alive. No aliens, you don't need an EDF. And the EDF is just about all he has left."

  "Dark feeds," Ron said. "What's that?"

  "Unofficial feeds," Roget said. "Illegal ones. They keep getting shut down, and more keep popping up." He shook his head. "You don't know how good the real news is until you spend some time watching the dark feeds. Lots of nonsense. Wild conspiracy theories. Crazy stuff. But it's all uncensored, and sometimes you get the truth." His eyes flicked around the room, then dropped again. "Big challenge is figuring out which bit is the truth in the ocean of crap."

  "What do you know about our people?" Ron said. "Admiral Hammett and the other Spacecom people who joined the Colonial Forces?"

  Roget frowned, thinking. "Well, the official story is, everyone from the colony got let go. The dark feeds say they all got executed, though."

  "I'm not executed," said a woman to Ron's left. "Your dark feeds got that one wrong."

  "Oh." Roget looked flustered for a moment. "Anyway, the Statsminister is saying Hammett and the others will all be executed." A collective gasp made him look up for an instant, startled. "Sorry. Well, he says there'll be a trial first. But he says they're all guilty and they'll hang."

  Carruthers said, "When? When is this trial?"

  Roget glanced at him, then looked down. "I don't know. I don’t think there's a date set."

  Not that it matters, Carruthers reflected bitterly. It's not as if I can do something.

  Ron and a few of the others went on asking questions. Roget gave most of the answers, with his officers speaking up from time to time. They knew very little, as it turned out. The United Worlds government seemed not to have a policy for dealing with the breakaway colony, and the new arrivals knew nothing at all about specific friends or family members of the colonists. Carruthers tuned it out, brooding over the trouble Hammett and his people were in.

  The word 'war' snapped his attention back to the meeting.

  "I don't know," Roget was saying. "Some people say to just hang on and wait for Acton to call an election. I mean, it's supposed to be, what? Another two and a half years until we vote again, right? So it's too soon to say he's not going to step down." Roget grimaced. "He sure won't be re-elected. I can tell you that much."

  "So people are just going to wait?" Ron demanded.

  "Well, maybe," said Roget. "They're getting pretty mad about the press. Montreal almost started a civil war, and then a lot of people got killed in the riots. The government says it's their fault. But there's vids on the dark feeds." His face darkened. "The military's been shooting people who were trying to run away."

  "Is there anything like an organized resistance?" Ron demanded.

  Roget shrugged. "There's stories on the dark feeds. But like I said." His shrug deepened. "A lot of it's crap. I just don't know."

  Civil war. Carruthers shivered. Would it really come to that? How savage would Acton be in suppressing a popular revolt?

  What portion of Spacecom and the army would follow orders? What portion would rebel?

  "I don’t know what's going to happen on Earth," Roget said, "but I'm sure glad I got out. I couldn’t believe it when they lifted the blockade. We thought maybe it was mines or something. But when we saw that Spacecom fleet go through, we figured maybe it was safe. Safer than staying, anyway. So we ran for it." He looked up, and for the first time managed to hold Ron's gaze for more than a moment. "Pretty soon, we might be looking back on the war with the aliens as the good old days."

  Eventually the meeting broke up. Carruthers paced the lawn outside, his thoughts churning. He looked up when he caught sight of a familiar figure in the corner of his eye. Janice Ling strolled over and joined him.

  "Did you record the meeting?" he said.

  "Yes." She looked up at him. "Why?"

  "There's something …" He shrugged. "I don't know. He said something important, but I can't figure out what it was."

  "Impending executions?" she said grimly. "Risk of civil war?"

  He shook his head.

  "Then maybe it's the fact the blockade is down."

  Of course. He stared at her. "He really did say that, didn't he? The Gate is unwatched on their side."

  She nodded. "That's what he said."

  It doesn't matter. Going through would still be really stupid. He looked around at the stone buildings and tidy rows of trees that surrounded him, and the looming bulk of the crater wall in the background. When did this place start to feel like home? Strangely enough, though, it did. If he left the colony and couldn't return, he'd regret it.

  For instance, if he flew into Spacecom-controlled space and got himself chucked into a cell right beside Hammett.

  "You're thinking about going back to Earth, aren't you?" Janice said.

  "It would be pretty stupid," he replied.

  She nodded. "But if you go, I'm coming too."

  He raised an eyebrow.

  "If I can get on these 'dark feeds', I can say a lot to discredit the EDF. I can tell people the colony isn't hostile. That they can come through the Gate and find sanctuary."

  "That might not be the most prudent message," Carruthers said. A flood of refugees might trigger a strong response from Spacecom.

  She nodded, conceding the point. "Still. The people of Earth need to know they're not alone." She scuffed a toe in the dirt. "I want to be a real journalist again," she said. "For that, I need an audience. And I need to be where the story is. And that means Earth." She folded her arms and stared into the distance for a minute. "It's not just my career, Jim. Journalists are being silenced back on Earth. Maybe a good loud voice speaking the truth can do some real good right now." She looked up at him, a pleading expression on her face. "Do you understand what I mean?"

  He nodded slowly. "Maybe you're right. Maybe we need to go back."

  CHAPTER 32 - HAMMETT

  As cells went, it wasn't so bad.

  Hammett walked to the front of the little room, felt the tingle of the force field against his sleeve as he turned, and walked—two whole paces—to the back wall. His knee brushed the edge of the little toilet that jutted from the wall as he turned to take two more strides to the front.

  If the bunk had
been folded down from the wall he wouldn't have had room to walk. Still, he'd had a smaller room in his cadet days. The Captain's cabin on the Alexander had been reasonably roomy, but his cabin on the Tomahawk wasn't much bigger than this. As for the stress, well, wondering if he was going to die soon wasn't exactly a new experience either.

  Pace. Pace. Turn. It was boring, but it gave him an outlet for his nervous energy.

  The lack of news was the worst part. Wondering what was happening to his officers and crew. Wondering if the EDF fleet was bombing Harlequin.

  Wondering how long the people of Earth would tolerate a tyrant.

  Pace. Pace. Turn.

  He could handle boredom. Long journeys through deep space during peacetime were incredibly dull. Sure, the boredom here was worse than usual. The force field blocking the door was opaque. No one visited. He had no human contact. Meal replacement bars dropped from a slot in the wall at regular intervals. The lights went dim each night, then came back up the next morning. And that was it.

  He would have given a lot for ten minutes with a news feed, though.

  Pace. Pace. Turn.

  He scratched his jaw. For the first time since his teenage years he'd gone long enough without beard suppressant that he was growing stubble, and it itched. He wondered how countless generations of men had put up with it before modern technology saved them.

  Pace. Pace. Turn.

  A distant boom of voices came to his ears. At first he ignored it, continuing to pace and turn. It was, however, the most interesting thing that had happened in a week, so at last he stopped, moved close enough to the force field that he could feel his hair stir, and listened.

  "One of these … Can't get … Open."

  The force field vanished, so abruptly that he jumped back. He could see a strip of narrow corridor and a stretch of blank gray wall on the far side. This was so novel that he spent a moment just staring.

  Then Sanjari stepped into view. She looked rough, her hair in a messy cloud around her head, her face lined with stress, but she smiled. "Good afternoon, Admiral. Feel like going for a walk?"

  "Is it him?" A couple more people stepped into his field of view, one of them jostling Sanjari. They were civilians, strangers, young men with a breathless, excited air. The one on the left beamed at him. The one on the right shouted, "We found him!" Both men hurried away.

  Hammett spent another moment just standing there, staring at Sanjari.

  "It's all right," she said. "It took me a moment, too."

  He took a deep breath, then stepped out of the cell.

  Aside from Sanjari, the corridor was empty. He saw half a dozen cells and an automated security console, and a staircase leading upward. It was all as he remembered from when they'd brought him here, seven endless days ago.

  "Nicholson was there," she said, and pointed to a cell. "He already went upstairs. Didn't even wait for me, the jerk." She smiled to show she didn't mean it. "I was there." She indicated the cell next to Hammett's.

  "What-" His voice, rusty with disuse, failed him. He cleared his throat, swallowed, and tried again. "What's happening?"

  She shrugged. "Social collapse? Armageddon? I'm not entirely sure." She flashed an impish grin. "I can't wait to find out, though. Come on!"

  He followed her down the corridor, giving the security console a wary glance, then up the stairs. His legs trembled. He told himself it was from all the pacing. He couldn't be overwhelmed by the experience, after all. It was just seven days in a box.

  His memories of the basements below the courthouse were fuzzier than he realized. He expected to find himself on the main floor, but there was another floor of cells that he'd forgotten. They had to circle around a security station to reach the next flight of stairs. Any guards were long gone, and he saw short corridors full of cells with the doors deactivated.

  At the top of the next flight they walked through one last security station and reached the main hall of the courthouse. It was a grand, imposing space, with massive pillars rising toward a vaulted ceiling three stories above. A common instinct made both of them shrink back, intimidated by so much space after a week in a tiny cell.

  "We're spacers," Hammett said at last. "This is nothing." He straightened up, taking on the familiar posture of a military man, and Sanjari did the same. Changing his stance had the strange effect of changing his mindset, and the last of the mindless fear that had dogged him since the cell opened finally fell away.

  Together, he and Sanjari walked across the marble floor of the main hall. The air smelled of dust and furniture polish, but a faint whiff of smoke reminded him that this was no ordinary day.

  The building seemed to be empty. The lights were out, but enough sunlight streamed in through high, narrow windows to make artificial lights superfluous. The two of them walked toward the main entrance, a pair of massive oak doors at the far end of the hall. One door stood ajar, letting in a brilliant bar of sunlight. Hammett couldn't see anything outside.

  They were a dozen paces from the doors when a figure stepped into view. It was a petite woman, made tiny by the size of the doorway. She was lit from behind so that he could see nothing but a silhouette, but he thought he recognized her just the same.

  "Admiral," said Janice Ling. "Lieutenant. I'm quite relieved to see you both." She held up a hand as they approached. "Things outside are … unsettled. I don't think it's quite the time for you to show your face."

  She stepped inside, then moved away from the doorway, beckoning for them to follow. Hammett went to the door and took a quick peek outside.

  He saw chaos. The barricades were gone. Instead, crowds of people roamed the streets, some with placards, some with clubs. Someone was shouting, far off, the voice made incoherent by echoes and distance. Groups edged past each other, wary and belligerent. Fear and rage were like a tang in the air.

  A small hand caught his elbow. "It's a powder keg out there," Janice said softly. "You're a spark. Think very carefully before you set something off."

  He let her pull him back from the door.

  "Come over here," she said, and positioned him in a shaft of sunlight. "It'll put the statue of Justice in the background." She backed away, and he glanced over his shoulder. A massive statue filled the far end of the hall, a blindfolded woman with scales.

  Janice drew several silver balls from a shoulder bag. When she let them go, the balls hovered around her. She closed her eyes, and the balls moved toward Hammett. Cameras, he realized, able to catch him from three angles.

  "I'll mostly use Cam Two," she said. "That's the one with the yellow light. But just look at me while you talk."

  "Whoa," he said. "Slow down. What are you doing?"

  "I'm putting you live on half a dozen dark feeds," she said. "The most popular ones. Ten million people will see you live. Most of the rest will see the recorded version within a few hours."

  He felt his knees go weak. "Now, just a minute!"

  "I'm sorry to ambush you like this," she said. "You have to do it, though." She stepped in close. "There's chaos all over the world, Richard." She gestured at the doorway behind her. "This isn't the only powder keg. The whole planet is like this. It's a turning point in history, and you have a role to play, whether you like it or not."

  He stared at her, shaking his head, wondering if he could make a run for it.

  "You know what's been going on," she said, then hesitated. "Wait. Do you know what's been happening? Just in the last four days, I mean."

  "No." He wanted to keep repeating the word until she put those damned cameras away. "No, I've been in a cell. I haven't heard anything."

  She stared at him for a moment, her forehead furrowed. "Okay. Here's the condensed version. There's demonstrations in pretty much every city in the world. The cops have stopped cracking down. There isn't enough military to be everywhere, and a lot of military units have been refusing to go against the demonstrators. The last straw was when Spacecom retreated to L2."

  Hammett said, "Spaceco
m retreated?"

  She nodded. "There isn't a military spacecraft on or near the Earth bigger than a shuttle, except for the Tomahawk."

  "The Tomahawk's here?"

  "Yes," she said, her voice betraying a hint of impatience. "It's how I got here. Anyway, Acton is barricaded in some secure war room in the outskirts of Nova Roma. He's got a bunch of loyal troops protecting him, and steel doors to keep the mobs out. A couple of dozen Members of Parliament have formed a provisional government and they're trying to get things under control." She smiled nastily. "So far, they're failing."

  "What about the EDF?" Sanjari interrupted.

  "Most of them have deserted," Janice said, not without a hint of vindictive satisfaction. "The rest are holed up in some of their offices and facilities." She jerked a thumb. "We've got a batch just a block from here, in Liberty Hall. They've locked the doors, and they're howling for rescue."

  An ember of disgusted anger that had lain dormant in Hammett's belly for a week suddenly flickered to life. The presence of EDF goons in Liberty Hall was a travesty, and the thought of driving them out filled him with a fierce joy. He clenched and unclenched his fists, thinking of the justice that was about to be meted out.

  "Things are at a tipping point," Janice said. "It just needs a tiny shove to get things moving in the right direction. People are scared. They're pushing. Some of them are pushing hard. But they're also holding back. They remember Montreal. They remember how the army fired into the crowd in Moscow and Des Moines. So they aren't pressing their advantage."

  She reached out and squeezed his arm. "This is our opportunity, Richard! People recognize you. They trust you. You're the man who saved us from the Hive, and everyone knows you don't work for Acton and the EDF. They know you'll speak the truth.

  "If you tell them the fleet is away from Earth, they'll believe you. You can tell them that most of the army isn't willing to fire on them. You can tell them that this is the time! They can finally hit back at the EDF. They can dig those vermin out from under every rock they're hiding under. They can finish off the EDF once and for all!" Her eyes glittered. "Then, Acton won't stand a chance. We'll go after him, and finish him off too."