“Others will die, Emma,” Henry said, closing his eyes as she ran her hand over his close-cropped hair. “I promised I would do this for them.”
Emma stared at Henry’s face. He had a broad forehead with deep lines of care. A small scar ran from under his scalp down an inch. She ran a finger along it, wondering what pain had caused it. His eyes opened and they locked stares. It took a few moments for them to succumb. The kiss was sweetened with chocolate and the taste of his relief. A sound snapped them away from each other.
“I thought you were working?” Ben said, leaning forward and wiping a string of drool from his thick lips. “Somebody has to work around here. I see Henry has been working on the induction amplifier again.”
Ben stood and walked past the two to collect a metal spring on the floor near the door. It was another piece of a rigged replacement part for the transmitter. In all of his tantrums, Henry had been careful to throw only broken or unused components. It was a relief that he had not accidentally damaged one of the sensitive components, but it made the ground crunch as he walked.
“The old fool thinks he’s playing face-ball again,” Emma said, pulling away from Henry’s lips with a grin.
“That’s baseball, babe,” Henry said, standing and stretching his creaking back. “If I was practicing baseball, I would still throw better than you. You hit like a girl.”
“Really?” Emma said, swatting him with the palm of her hand. “I’ll show you who hits like a girl. Besides, I am more of a catcher anyway.”
Emma wrapped her arms around Henry’s neck and kissed him again. Ben stepped past the couple and sat back down. He avoided looking at the couple until it became obvious they would not be separating on their own. He cleared his throat. The two soldiers pulled apart again and Henry looked at his friend.
“Sorry,” he said. “I guess maybe it is time to take a break.”
“You’ve broken enough,” Ben replied. “Go fix something in your quarters.”
Emma grinned at Ben as Henry stepped back to take his jacket. The air inside the mountain fortress was naturally cool. Emma walked to Ben and gave him a quick kiss on the forehead. Ben waved her off as he turned back to the workbench. Henry shook his head and took Emma by the hand, leading her away from the cramped tech room.
“Goodnight, Ben,” Henry said over his shoulder. “See you in the morning.”
“It’s already afternoon,” Ben called just as the door shut.
Henry looked to Emma with a question. She nodded and held up a wrist chrono reading 2:07 p.m. Henry shook his head again, trying to think where the days had gone. Emma took the lead and pulled him down the wide stone corridor towards the living quarters they shared. He seemed to lose momentum as they walked down the hallway. By the time they reached an intersection, Emma was nearly holding him up.
The facility was more sparsely populated than the one they had come from. Only one or two people could be expected at any time in the wide corridors, so the sight of the black woman holding up the soldier drew almost no notice. By the time they reached the final turn to get to the living module, Emma heard a whirring sound.
“Henry!” a voice came from the end of the hall. Emma turned to see the colonel riding the smooth electric wheelchair that kept the man mobile. “I hoped to catch up with you. It’s good to see you—”
The old man stopped his chair as he saw Emma under Henry’s arm. A look of concern grew across his lined face. Henry’s eyes popped open as he heard the chair stop. He pushed himself back up to his feet and brushed off Emma’s arms. The old soldier raised his hand in an old-fashioned salute to the superior officer. The old man smiled as he returned the gesture.
“I was going to ask if you were alright,” Colonel Sadler replied. “Now I see you’re just drunk. I didn’t authorize the measure of rum, so I think you must have brought your own.”
The man grinned as Henry settled back into Emma’s arms. The expression was an old one involving sailors on the high seas, but had come to mean the times when alcohol was passed around to celebrate. They had a store of the potent brew below. Emma shook her head and smiled at the old man.
“He’s not drunk, sir,” she said. “He’s finally agreed to take a break. This old fool hasn’t been away from that bench in two days.”
“I see,” the colonel replied. “Henry, you have to pace yourself. We could be down here for a long time. That transmitter of yours was pretty advanced. I don’t know we have the parts to repair it. You need to take care of yourself. We can use fighters like you.”
When they had arrived, the old man had told them about the infrequent raids to gather supplies. As the population in the facility grew, more supplies were needed. The real problem came when they tried to train new fighters. There were not enough qualified military personnel on the base to train the young kids who wanted to learn. They had lost nearly a dozen young men in a raid only a week before Henry had arrived.
“I can fix it, sir,” Henry slurred. “I just need to get my head on straight. I have to. They are all counting on me.”
Henry seemed to slump again and Emma took his weight. She was athletic and strong from her training and supported him well. The colonel looked her over with a thin glare. She turned Henry’s face away from her own and whispered to the old man.
“I drugged the chocolate,” she said. “I wanted him to go take a nap.”
“I can’t say I approve of using the facility’s medical supplies that way,” the colonel said. “But I suppose it is for the best. He needs to get his head around the fact we may never contact his people.”
“He’ll get his head on straight, sir. Don’t you worry about that,” she replied. “The thing is, he’ll still keep trying to contact his people. I have never seen this man give up on anything. If he had, I would have been dead ten times over.”
“Be that as it may, Miss Emma,” Sadler replied. “Have you ever actually seen proof that this Alliance even exists?”
Emma nearly speared the man with her eyes. Through the age and experience, she saw a flicker of fear cross his face as she adjusted Henry and faced him directly.
“If this man says the Alliance is coming,” Emma said, her voice like steel over gravel. “Then I will fly out into space and form one if I have to. Do not ever question what Henry says. He is the best man I ever met, present company included.”
“Take it easy, soldier,” Sadler said, raising his hands in supplication. “I didn’t mean that. I just meant if we cannot count on these people coming to rescue us, maybe you two could make some plans.”
Emma stared. She had never thought about staying in the mountain. Even if they failed, they were going back to the other facility up north. Denny and the colonel were nice people, as were most of the ones she had met, but this was not home. She could not think like that. Settling for living down here with Henry, starting a family, or even living what passed for a normal life was out of the question. He would not want that. As soon as the anger shot through her, it passed. She looked back to the old man.
“My life with him is wherever we are, and that is the truth,” Emma said. “If you will excuse me, I have to put this old fool to bed. I think another old fool might need to roll his ass back to bed as well. Good night.”
As Emma pushed past the wheelchair, a hand extended, locking on to her wrist and holding her tight. Sadler looked up at the woman with a strange expression. Emma could see the compassion in his eyes. Here was a man who had been trying to tie together what he believed to be the last vestiges of free humanity. Henry’s signal represented hope, but also the possibility of losing it all. She felt for the man. He was not much different than Jack Cole. His body may have begun to fail, but his will was strong and he believed in what he had done.
“I’m sorry, Emma,” Sadler said, looking towards his lap. “I just thought…”
“I know what you thought, Colonel. I have to protect the one I love too. If that means bringing down fiery hell from the sky, then so be it.”
Emma jerked her arm away and continued past. She heard the whir of his chair after a moment, moving away down the wide corridor. She turned another corner and the noise vanished. Henry had become a nearly dead weight on her shoulders, pressing down on her. It was the first time she had truly admitted her feelings for him, and he was unconscious.
As she struggled down the ramp to the living quarters, she began to hear shouting from within. The doors in the facility were manual and she had to manipulate Henry to reach the doorknob. When she opened, she heard shouts from the people within. It was a broad open courtyard that led into the various housing areas, and for the first time she saw it full of people. Emma dragged Henry to where the crowd was gathered, drawing a few odd looks in the process.
“We found him just inside the lower cave entrance,” Denny’s voice could be heard. “He was covered in blood, but we got him inside and washed most of it off.”
Emma finally reached a point where she could see. There was a man on the floor covered in a tattered parka. The clothing he wore was nearly gone, burned on one side and torn through to skin on the other. Whoever it was had seen fierce combat just recently. An odor of burnt flesh and coppery blood wafted to her the closer she came. Denny seemed even prouder of his newest find than he was of his last. Another man, Emma did not recognize him, stood nearby with a rifle on his arm. By his look, she assumed he was one of the security commanders at the facility.
“He was babbling when we got to him,” the man said. “Something about the bugs and calling for coal or something.”
Emma perked up on hearing the statement. The shouting had begun to rouse Henry and he pushed himself back to his own feet. Emma looked to the man on her shoulder in surprise. She had used enough sedative to knock out an elephant, but he kept trying to wake. He finally pushed himself away from her and looked at the assembly. The crowd, seeing his interest, parted to let the man through. He walked on unsteady feet towards the prone figure.
“Where did you say you found him?” Henry asked, slurring his words just a little. “I wanna know.”
“He was near the base of the mountain. We call it the lower cave entrance. You probably passed it on your way up,” Denny said, shouldering his own short gun. “I swapped out with Kevin for guard duty tonight so I could get in some reading. The cave entrance has the best—”
“Shut up, Denny,” Henry said, staggering past the boy to look at the man on the floor. The boy looked hurt, but stepped aside. Emma laid a hand on his shoulder as he passed and gave him a friendly smile. The boy had begun to admire the stories Henry told. She could tell he was hurt, but the pride in his new find kept his spirits up. Henry knelt down to the man and examined his torn parka.
“It’s one of ours,” he said, pulling a patch around to show Emma. “See, he has the seal. It’s the other team.”
Emma remembered the mission parameters. Two teams were sent to each location. Each team carried a duplicate transmitter, copied from Henry’s original, in case one team was lost. Since they had arrived, Henry had assumed the other team had not made it. No other signals were sent by any other team and Henry had felt the weight of his own failure increase. This man represented a hope that Emma had been carrying for her lover’s sanity.
“Help me look for the transmitter,” Henry said, looking at Emma through unfocused eyes. “He has to have it somewhere.”
Emma knelt just as the colonel whirred into the room. He gave a look of unease as he saw the two rifling through the man’s pockets like a pair of thieves. Emma shot him a stare that told him not to say anything. Henry was tearing away at the remaining clothes like a madman. Emma was worrying for his mental state as he finished checking the parka for the transmitter. Neither of them had found the device, and Henry looked even paler and more distraught.
“There’s something in his hand,” Denny said in a small voice. “At least what’s left of his hands? We couldn’t get him to let it go.”
Henry looked at the boy and smiled a crooked smile. He checked the hand that was nearest and saw it was open and clean. Emma needed to reach under and lift the man to free his other hand. Half the skin was missing down to the bone and the remaining skin was charred. Emma could not believe the man had still had strength left to hold the object. He had almost no muscle left in the smaller digits, yet held the device tight. Henry pulled at the fingers and Emma heard a snap.
“Henry!” she said, reaching across to stay his hand. He let go of the broken finger and leaned back. The two locked eyes for a moment before Emma reached down to the hand again and gently pried the remaining fingers open. The strength had finally gone out of the tendons holding the hand together. A small, round object, shiny despite the blood and soot, lay in his hand. Henry’s face gained a look of ecstasy as Emma held the transmitter up to the light. It was a perfect, undamaged sphere with a row of lights just turning green.
“We can do it,” Henry said, his voice full of joy. “We can send the signal.”
Emma looked to the colonel to see a sad expression cross his face. For a moment, he did not move. After what seemed like hours, he looked back up at Emma and smiled. His head bobbed slightly in a nod of assent.
“Yes, Henry,” Emma replied, looking back at the man. ‘We can send the signal and start the war.”
Henry smiled back at her. Tears seemed to threaten from his eyes. She had never seen the expression on a man before. She smiled back at him, willing him to finally relax. He doubled his smile, looking absurd with blood on his hands.
Henry then passed out and fell across the body.
21
Alliance Carrier Baal
Dozens of ships floated silently past the projection screen. Admiral Ronald Chang stood just behind the command chair and watched. Abandoning Perigee station had been a strategic move after sending the signal of Pearce’s execution. He assumed the station was gone now, the noble old station destroyed by an enemy bent on destroying the life of every free human in the galaxy. All that remained of the survivors were in these ships, waiting. The ones who could not fight had been taken to an allied world for safety. They had lost the signal from Captain Ortiz shortly after he arrived.
Since the video had arrived from Wellick on board Victory, there had been no further communication with Resolute either. The volunteers who manned the ancient warships had been running battle drills constantly, readying themselves for the attack to come. The two newly minted commodores were seeing to their duties well, and Commander Lira had Baal under control. Yet, despite having a larger fleet than he had ever commanded orbiting around him, he felt as if his strongest ships were gone, leaving him undefended.
Nevertheless, though Chang did not want to admit it to himself or anyone else, he was bored. He turned and walked back to the large office that separated the main bridge from the planning area behind. He had requested the space from Lira to better control the course of the coming battle. Where there had once been a comfortable couch and chairs now stood planning tables and holographic projectors. He tapped a key and the entire room lit up with attack scenarios. He had been running simulations for days now, trying to determine the best scenario for any eventuality. In most of the simulations, the attack failed and the fleet was destroyed.
Chang had been near the top of his class at the academy, and had risen fast through the ranks using his innate ability to see the turning points of battles and use them to his advantage. He had done this with Banu Rao and at the battle of Karisia. Sometimes the difference was a single ship or a piece of information the enemy did not have. In any case, Ronald used his advantage to strike. As he watched the battle simulations play out, he knew something was missing. A piece of the puzzle had not been laid on the table yet and he did not like it.
“Admiral?” Lira’s voice came from the open door of the office. “Sir, we’ve received a visitor.”
Chang turned to see the captain of Baal standing beside a small white creature. Less than a third the size of the Vadne captain, the alien stood
proud and seemed bigger than it appeared. It was wearing the familiar all-white robe that hid any vestige of its body from sight. Its skin was thin as rice paper and covered a large skull inset with white on white eyes. Chang had always had the feeling the creatures looked not at someone, but through them. There was only a slit for a mouth, and no nose, which gave the creatures a passive, placid look.
“Admiral, I have been sent to relay a message to you from the Convocation.” The voice came from inside Chang’s head. “One of your people has committed an act of savagery and must be stopped.”
Chang had heard the creatures, known colloquially as elves, vocalize songs and stories as they worked, but had not experienced the direct thought communication personally. Captain Jakes carried several of the creatures on board his ship and apparently they spoke to him regularly. The man had nearly sacrificed his own life to save the small creatures, so Chang assumed they felt a debt. It was strange to watch the creature’s face and not see the lips move but still hear its thoughts.
“We’ve received no information about any attack,” Chang asked the elf. “What’s happened?”
“A peaceful planet,” the creature said, “controlled by priests and artists has been decimated. One of your ships possesses a weapon of terrible purpose. We did not see this device in our collective mind. The violence it created blinds us to its location. There is much compassion from the man you call Rao.”
“Compassion is the one word I would not use to describe that man,” Chang responded. “He’s gone insane with power and gone after the Ch’Tauk himself.”
“And that is where his compassion lies, Admiral,” the elf replied, cocking his small head slightly. “You see it as anger over some imagined slight, but we see more clearly into this man’s heart than most. He cares so deeply for the future of humanity, he wants only to protect it. He feels your race has come to rely too heavily on others, that it has slowed you down and made you dependent on others for help.”
Resolute Victory (The War for Terra) Page 17