Homefront

by Trevor Wyatt

  “You are filth, Master Merchant,” I say, and break into a run, rifle at the ready as if I were storming an enemy encampment—which, in a way, I am.

  The pod’s countdown alarm begins beeping. A minute until its engines fire. A laser beam lances the air beside me. I angle off, but not solely to avoid Byuren’s weaponry: I rip Rosaline’s communicator, which has been recording my conversation with the traitor, off my wrist. “I don’t know if you can hear me,” I gasp as I zig-zag toward a pile of crates off to one side. “Have to try to disable his ship. I’ll try to hide this thing out of blast range.” I stuff it down between two sturdy metal packing containers, where it may be safe.

  “Affirmative,” comes her voice, muffled against the crates. “But don’t risk yourself!”

  Before I can reply, Byuren fires again, and this time he is lucky: the beam sweeps across my left arm, slicing it clean off above the elbow, but fortuitously cauterizing the wound as it does so. The pain is intense, and I know I will fall prey to shock in moments.

  I stagger toward the pod. In moments, I am too close for him to bring his lasers to bear on me, and I half dive, half fall under the engine fairing. The take-off alarm bleats: seconds left.

  In agony from my injury, I worm my way further under the pod, toward the main engine, and thrust his useless rifle up side it, as hard as I can, lodging it firmly. Then I scramble back, gasping in pain. I can’t make it. I can’t get out from under the escape pod.

  But I think I have managed to cripple it. The countdown ends, and with a click, the main engine comes on behind me, and the impact of the blast is so great that for a moment all I feel is pressure as I am flung out from beneath the ship into a pile of shipping containers. I am broken, dying. But I know the ignition pulse is erratic: the rifle is diverting the exhaust flow to the sides of the fuel chamber.

  There is a greater explosion.

  Then everything goes white.

  Chapter 28

  No-One

  It has been a month since Gresh’s death.

  After being debriefed following the successful conclusion of the mission I have been put on leave. I’m in my home—a small four bedroom apartment in Bryson City on the planet Devidia. It’s far enough away from the border of any other spacefaring nation that I can forget that Terrans now co-exist with other races in the galaxy. I’ve just vegetated.

  Out of the last month, I’ve spent most of that time playing games on my console, drinking more than is good for me, engaging in recreational sex with men I’ve picked up in bars, ignoring the news, and trying to not think. I have ignored private communiques and all other forms of messaging as well. I’ve earned the right to be left alone for a while.

  People have called me a hard case. I didn’t use to be. In trying not to think about my current situation I have inadvertently opened a channel to my childhood. Amazingly enough, most of what I recall before the terraformer is good. I was a happy kid. Average. I ran around and played with my friends, I loved video games (well, that much is sort of still true, though they don’t consume me like they used to), I did well in school. I even played the cello for a while. I had a life.

  Then my family was wiped out, and I became a ward of the state. If it wasn’t for Admiral Shane during those years, I wouldn’t be here today. He pointed me and made me work, and I worked mindlessly, training myself and immersing myself in challenges that made others balk. It was a way to not think about things, to avoid introspection, and to make a difference. I could get as far away from my home as possible, to other worlds.

  All the activity and action helped me achieve all my goal of not thinking. I became the very best agent I could be, better than anyone else. Not for nothing (as my grandmother used to say) but I am “No. 1” for a reason.

  Along in the process, I became a hard case. I put a shell around me. No one and nothing could get through. This is what Intelligence tells you to do, of course—and it’s good advice for agents. You’re not supposed to care; you’re not supposed to get emotionally involved with your assignment, or with anyone else.

  And I was good with that, for years. Proud of it, in fact. I had no long-term relationships, no pets, no friends. It was just me and my houseplants, and they knew to look after themselves for long periods. That eliminated Terran houseplants, of course, but there are other options.

  And so, being responsible for nothing and no one else, I always thought that I’d be prepared to offer the ultimate sacrifice for my job. But while I’ve been sitting in my apartment playing video games, it gradually dawned on me that a job is not worth dying for. Yes, it may be a person’s responsibility to die for a job, but that’s not the same as Gresh dying for a principle—which is what he did. He sacrificed himself for his beliefs, not for his non-disclosure agreement. He died so that his fellow Sonali could have the choice whether or not to remain in their birth gender.

  Me? If I died on the job, maybe I’d get a plaque somewhere on some corridor wall and my photograph in an annual memorial.

  That used to be enough. But while I’ve been sitting here playing point-and-shoot against gooey aliens, my not thinking wall has been breaking down.

  Because of Gresh.

  I admired the guy even before he died. I liked him. He did what he had to do, and I am sure he was absolutely terrified the entire time. But he did it because he believed in something. He wasn’t the type of person to not think about things.

  Dammit, Gresh, what are you doing to my head?

  Despite all the distractions with which I have surrounded myself, I am no longer able to not think about things.

  Part of this, of course, is because he used the communicator I gave him to record the last hour of his life. I was in the aircar with him...I stormed the warehouse with him, and I watched as he threw himself under Byuren’s escape pod and damaged its exhaust nozzle. I saw him drag himself out from under the vehicle. He must have known it was a futile gesture.

  I also saw the huge grin on his face as the pod exploded behind him, killing him. The bastard was happy. He was proud of what he had done. He had even managed to save the communicator...it was damaged, but when it was found in the wreckage of Byuren’s warehouse it was still functional. That’s how we know what happened. With the damning evidence given by Byuren himself in his own words to Gresh, the Union, working with the Sonali government, was able to indict the merchant’s co-conspirators, up to and including High Cleric Szaad’s allies within the Sacred Temple.

  Grateful Terran Union officials established a memorial scholarship fund for xenoarchaeologists at the Academy a few days ago. Sonali educators did the same. He was well on his way to becoming a folk hero.

  As far as I am concerned, he deserves it.

  All I know is, I’ll miss him.

  Gresh had served his people well. My own part in the incident would, of course, be redacted, covered up, but that’s an agent’s lot: when we screw up, it usually means our cover gets blown, and we’re in the news. When we do well, no one knows.

  There’s always that memorial plaque, though.

  After four weeks, the messages popping up on my screen are becoming more impatient and exasperated in tone. I can’t avoid it any longer: I have to go speak with my colleagues and apply for my next assignment. The attitude in the service always is, “Thanks a heap, but what have you done for us lately?”

  So I pack up my game console, make sure the plants can reach the tap in the kitchen I’ve left dripping for them, and head out.

  A few days later, I return back to Sonali Prime and to the Embassy.

  Making my way past the Marines in the lobby, I take the elevator up to the ambassador’s office. As always, Violet is sitting there, typing industriously at her computer. When I slouch in, she looks up from her work. With a sympathetic look on her face, she says, “Anika, have you heard the news?”

  I give her back a perfunctory smile and a shrug. “I’ve been avoiding the news. What’s up?”

  “You’ll love this.” Her tone b
ecomes ironic. “It seems that the ambassador has received so many kudos for solving the crisis that he’s been offered the chance to run for president.”

  I open my mouth to say something acerbic but close it again. All I can do is shrug.

  “I know,” she says. “Go on in, Anika... he’s expecting you.”

  My slouch must be even more pronounced as I push open the door to Esteban Asis’s inner sanctum. He’s behind his desk, chirping to someone on the commlink, looking cheerful. I take some consolation in the fact that if this two is indeed going to run for office, at least he’ll have to give up his post here. With any luck, the next ambassador will be someone competent. Or at least less incompetent. It’s hard to imagine anyone less able than Asis, whose only talent, as far as I have seen, is being able to delegate his responsibilities to others. His staff does the work, and he floats around from breakfast to ceremony, from cocktail party to photo opportunity.

  Without waiting to be offered a seat I slum down into a chair in front of him and wait patiently for him to finish his conversation. He seems to be talking with someone from the media.

  At last, he’s done and puts his phone down with obvious satisfaction.

  “Congratulations, sir,” I say, robbing him of the pleasure of bragging. “Violet gave me the news.”

  A quick pout flits across his features. “Ah,” he says lamely. “Well.”

  “So when are you leaving?” I don’t bother to keep the anticipation out of my voice. “We’ll sure miss you around here.” What I want to say is, Don’t let the door hit you in your fat bureaucrat’s ass on your way out, you penis-bearing pencil-pusher.

  He seems mollified. I’m sure he knows I’m lying, but at least I am following office protocol, so he is happy.

  “The Dejah Thoris leaves for Earth at noon,” he says. I’ve heard of the Thoris; it’s a luxury liner. Passage aboard such a vessel would cost me two years’ pay.”

  “I’m jealous,” I say, even if I’m not. “I hope you have an uneventful flight. And a successful run.”

  “Thank you,” he says. He reaches into a drawer, takes out an envelope, and hands it to me. There is no name written on it, but I recognize TAOIC paper when I see it.

  “Your new assignment,” he says. “I haven’t looked at it.”

  Well, sure—why would he give a fuck? I’m going to be back here doing work while he is having his picture taken with starlets.

  I slip the envelope inside my jacket. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing what assignment Terran Armada Intelligence Operations Command has for me. He’s out of the loop now, and he knows it.

  I should let bygones be bygones, but Asis is a little twerp, and I have nothing but contempt for him. Instead of giving him the back of my hand, as I would love to do, I extend mine for him to shake. He can’t refuse, so he takes it. I give his fingers an extra hard squeeze. My enhanced muscles make that a pleasure for me. I enjoy seeing him wince but I don’t smile.

  “Goodbye, sir.”

  “Yes,” he says, rubbing his hand as unobtrusively as he can. “Perhaps we’ll, uh, run into each other again someday.”

  “Perhaps so.”

  Great stars, I hope not.

  Chapter 29

  No-One

  I make my way home after exchanging grins with Violet on my way out. Asis is apparently rising to his level of incompetence, not having been enough of a knucklehead to be totally out of place as Terran ambassador plenipotentiary to Sonali Prime. Perhaps being a politician will allow him to exercise his powers as a galaxy-class self-fellator fully. At least he won’t be parading his bloated ego around here anymore.

  Once I’m back inside my apartment on Sonali Prime, I put the envelope from TAIOC on the side table, park myself on my settee, pull out my game console and resume my video game. I know Command won’t expect me to report for duty for at least a month, which means I can ignore that note for a good three weeks.

  Esteban Asis is an arrogant dogbopper, but I can’t escape the uncomfortable feeling that I have been pretty arrogant myself. Maybe I’m tired of being thought of as a hard case. I’m learning that arrogance comes in many flavors, and for me at least, one of the most useful things I have learned from my association with the ambassador is that facts never bothered the guy.

  He is undeniably bright but totally self-absorbed—and though a skilled diplomat (well, we’ll allow that for the sake of the argument), he has always believed that he knows more about other fields of study than people specializing in those fields. I think of that as “Crossover Competence Syndrome,” and I’ve run across it in other people, if I had to point to someone who is an exemplar of it, I’d use Asis.

  He’s like one of my schoolmates at the Academy. He insisted that the way to get maximum distance from a thrown rock was to throw it parallel to the ground rather than waste momentum with a pointless upwards component. I tried to remind him about the effects of gravity and how a bullet fired directly forward would hit the ground at the same time as a rock dropped simultaneously with the shot and from the same height, but I made no headway against this person's superior and unshakable knowledge. He “knew” what he “knew,” and facts wouldn’t change his mind.

  There are a lot of people like that around. I don’t want to be one of them. I mean, I know what I know—but I may not have all the facts. Sometimes people need to change their opinions based on new information.

  Going forward, I think I need to maintain a reasonable level of humility; and to do that I must be aware that a great many of the things I “know,” if not all of them, are bound to be distortions of the truth, or limited glimpses of the truth, or—possibly—just plain wrong. My time here on Sonali Prime and my association with Gresh proved that to me. Before coming here, I “knew” all Sonali were bastards. I “knew” they couldn’t be relied upon.

  Although that was true in some cases, I have since learned that the percentage of Sonali who are idiots is no greater than the percentage of human beings who fit into that category.

  I think about all this for the next couple of days. The more I turn it over in my head, the more sense it makes. I resolve to be a better “me” in future. I am already a good agent; but how am I as a person? The only way to know that is to see how I do when I am with other people—something I usually avoid unless I need sex or have to take a meeting.

  I don’t really know how to be with other people. I have always had a sort of contempt for the “civilians” I am sworn to protect. But is that because they deserve my scorn, or because I am afraid to compare myself to them, and find myself wanting? Because, after all, most normal people have relationships; they make friends, they socialize, they get married and have children.

  I have done none of these things. I don’t know how to do those things.

  Before I met Gresh, I never thought like this. I was always sufficient unto myself.

  I can feel the old Anika Grayson pulling at me, urging me to forget the bullshit and stick to video games and casual sex. She’s pretty persuasive.

  But I have been trained to take calculated risks. Trying to alter my personality now feels like a calculated risk.

  I am going to have to do something about it. But what do people do when they become unhappy with themselves and yearn to change?

  They seek professional help.

  I set my game console aside with a sigh and pick up my pad. In its search field, I type PSYCHOLOGISTS.

  I’m sure this process won’t be completed before I have to go back to work.

  But a girl has to start somewhere.

  The Pax Aeterna Universe

  Pax Aeterna is the name of the science fiction universe created by Trevor Wyatt. It explores humanity as it explores and grows in its journey into the stars, taking its place amongst other species in the universe. The series features around human conflicts, internal as well as those external.

  Included you will find excerpts from the Encyclopdia Aeterna.

  Encyclopedia Aet
erna Volume 1

  Timeline of the Terran Union

  2024: Formal treaty to set a 25 year term towards political integration between the United States, Canada, and Mexico in an extension of NAFTA. This was agreed to in the backdrop of The Accords of Expedition amongst member nation states of the European Union for greater political integration by 2040.

  The first private spacecraft to carry passengers into space, and allow them to spend one week aboard a private space station operated and owned by the Taylor Corporation was launched. The passengers paid $3.5 million and there were 15. They were returned successfully to earth after a period of one week in space.

  2025: Realizing that the integration between the United States, Canada, and Mexico would lead to a large superpower and with the addition of a greater political union between the member nations of the European Union the countries of Asia decided that only one course of action existed for them; a political union. The countries of China, India, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia decided to form a political union with the goal of full integration by the year 2054. The seat of power for the Asian Bloc sat in the city state of Hong Kong.

  2026: The Asian Bloc began to exert its influence through a series of trade deals with nations on its periphery. The actions from the Asian block were opposed by the North American Confederation. Tensions rose over determining territorial waters as well as shipping routes. Trade embargoes were placed upon a series of Asian Bloc nations by the North American Confederation. Violence continued to escalate in the Middle East as the countries of Iran and Saudi Arabia sought to increase their spheres of influence within the region. These moves were opposed by both the European Union as well as the North American Confederation but were supported by the Asian Bloc.

  An economic contagion spurred by cheap money caused by low interest rates and sustained by a high rate of inflation began to ravage the American industrial and lower skilled service industries. The United States government, in an effort to prevent widespread economic damage began to severely limit the ability of corporations to bring in foreign workers.