by Rob Buckman
"You might say I have a little, why?” Drake said, hearing Brock chuckle again.
"Because we have to find a way to stop these alien's from taking our children."
"You will have to do a lot more than that, you will have to take the fight to the enemy at some point, or they will be back in greater force with better weapons."
"You don't understand, all we want to do is stop them taking any more children, that is all, or at least compensating us for them as many of the council members requested." He said, as if explaining something to a child. Scott could see that this whole situation went deeper than he first imagined. Yet he couldn’t think of where to start, then he did. He left aside the statements about payment and concentrated on the problem at hand.
"What weapons have you used to try and stop them, thermonuclear or conventional?"
"Pardon?" President Westwood asked, looking blank. Scott blinked, wondering if his description of weapons was so antiquated that the old man couldn’t relate them to them. Maybe modern weapons were called something else now. It was probably like asking modern infantryman what kind of bow and arrows he used to fight with.
"Tell me what you have done to try and stop them?"
"Nothing."
"No, I mean what weapons did you use?"
"None, we do not have any." Scott chuckled, thinking it had to be a question of language.
"You must have something, ICBM, laser, mass drive, ion cannons, something."
"No, none of those, whatever they are."
"How about a rifle, shotgun, pistol.” Scott said, starting to sweat.
"No, none of those either." The blank look on the President's face was enough to tell him he wasn't joking.
"You are telling me that you do not have a single weapon of any description on this planet.” There was an embarrassing silence for a moment.
"If I understand you correctly, then the answer is no, we do not.” Scott shook his head, looking desperately at Brock. He was no help, as he was just as stunned.
"When did this happen, when did you get rid of them?"
"We, we have never have had any as far as I know."
"That's impossible! Scott exploded. “Before they put me in cold sleep, we just finished a war in which we used nuclear weapons!"
"What is a war?” The old man asked. Scott sat down on the arm of the couch with a thump, unable to say a word, except.
"I don't believe it, I don't believe it." Leaning his head back, he rubbed his temples, trying to make sense out of what he'd heard.
"Are you in pain Sar Drake?"
"You could say that."
"Is there anything you need?” He asked. Scott's sobbing laughter echoed around the room and Brock knew how he felt. You either had to laugh or cry, and the General wasn't about to cry. The President just didn't understand.
"Did I say something funny?" He asked, sounding a little angry himself.
"You could say that, and as to what I need I don't think you could even begin to understand. Brock, talk to the man while I go and see if I can find something to drink around this place.” Brock knew that the General didn't drink except in the right moments, so he had another reason to leave. He did, he wanted time to think and reset his mental compass.
"Can you explain to me what Sar Drake was laughing at? The old man asked.
"Mister, I don't know what sort of planet this is now, but I can just bet it’s a hell of a lot different from the one we left." Scott walked to the doorway and checked his people on guard.
"Any trouble?” He asked.
"No, sir. A few people turned up so we naturalized them and stuck them in a room down the hall."
"Any more guards?” He asked, looking at the growing pile of shock batons.
"Yes, sir, five."
"Good, if you need more manpower send someone down to the basement or whatever and bring people up."
"Aye-aye, sir, already did." With a nod of approval Scott went back into the apartment and looked around for Janet, finding her at last in a side room.
"How’s the girl Janet?" Seeing the young girl quickly hide behind Janet’s legs.
"Frightened, but she'll be all right, sir.” She answered, reaching behind her to pat the girl’s head reassuringly. "I've been talking to her and you wouldn't believe what she’s been telling me.” Janet commented, looked down. She did look scared.
"Women are owed here, property right?” He said with a sigh, thinking of Skinners and the old man's comment.
"It's worse than that, sir.” Janet clenched her fist. “They treat them like cattle, buying, selling, and trading them on the open market.” He could see she was on the verge of tears, instinctively placing his hand on her shoulder and squeezing. The dam broke and he held her tight in the circle of his arms while she cried.
"Sh...." He whispered soothingly, stroking her hair. They stood there for a few minutes until she'd regained her composure and she gently pulled away.
“I'm all right now, sir, thank you.” She whispered, wiping her eyes.
“For what Janet.” He said with a smile, wiping one errant tear from her cheek, “how many times have you held a guy who broke down during our ride through hell. This time it’s your turn." She smiled in return and came to attention.
"Thank you General. Is there anything you would like?” She asked, and Scott knew he wasn't the only one who needed to reset their mental compasses.
"Tell me about the girl."
"She's about twelve to thirteen years old, she isn't sure, and she was brought up here about a year ago."
"Did she tell you where she came from?"
"No, sir, she couldn’t really say, just some sort of girls’ training school, only...”
"What?" Scott asked, betting he knew what sort of training she’d received.
"I don't know, sir, it's just that she looks an awful lot like Pam Reilly." Scott stopped as he was about to walk out of the room, looking at the girl. A terrible feeling came over him them and he walked over to look at the girl closely. She drew back as he approached, as if fearing he was going to hit her. Janet came over quickly, kneeling down to take the girl in her arms.
"It's all right, he isn't going to hurt you.” She said softly.
"He looks very angry!" The girl whispered, and looking up Janet saw the expression on the Scott's face.
"Oh, I am, little one, but I’m not angry at you, just the people who treated you like this." Scott stroked the side of her face with the back of his hand.
"Do you know where you were born?" The girl shook her head.
"From what I can find out General, she has lived here as long as she can remember except for the short time she was at the um… training school."
"That's what I thought." He didn’t want to think about what sort of training school it was, or what they were training her for.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” Janet asked, and Scott looked at her.
"I hope the hell I'm wrong, or there is going to be a lot of blood spilled around this place." He stalked back into the room in an ice-cold fury, and reaching down into the pit, he simply lifted Skinner up by the scruff of his neck and held him up and ripped the gag off.
"I am going to ask you a question, and I am only going to ask it once.” He growled. “If I don't get the right answers I am going to beat you to death. Do you understand?” Skinner was white with terror and could only nod. He’d already wet himself. "Where did that girl come from?” He asked between clenched teeth. Skinner didn’t need a map to tell him which girl Scott was talking about.
"She, she came from the lab, from downstairs!” He stuttered.
"Who are her parents?"
"I, I don't know..." Scott slammed him into a wall, breaking his nose and smashing his front teeth. Skinner wailed and blubbered, covering his face with his hands.
"Wrong answer.” Scott said and smashed him against the wall again.
"Stop please! There is no reason for such violence," the President shouted, coming out
of his seat.
"I'm sure Director Skinner will tell you what you want to know if you just asked him!” The old man moved forward, almost out of camera range and his image was starting to waver.
"You could be right Mr. President, but this just gets past the bullshit a lot quicker than words.” Brock answered.
"But you have no right! You might do serious damage to his body!"
"Now you’ve got the picture." Brock commented, and the old man looked at him as if he was something that had just crawled out from under a rock. Personally Brock didn’t give a shit, he'd seen that look before.
"How can you treat violence so casually?"
"Easy.” Brock answered with a shrug.
"What sort of world did you people live in.” He muttered, his eyes turning to Scott and Skinner and watched in horror as he slammed Skinner against the wall again.
"I asked you a question, asshole."
"I need a doctor, I need a doctor, I'm bleeding!” He wailed.
"You are going to need a mortician if you don't start talking.” Scott said, using the wall again.
"We used you people to breed them..." He choked out at last.
"That's what I thought.” Scott said, dropping the sobbing man to the floor in a heap, feeling like he wanted to kick the man to death.
"Did you know about this?" He snarled at the President. Even safe in his hologram the man backed away from the sheer venom in the Scott voice. He thanked Allah that he wasn't there in person.
"No, no I didn't."
"But this goes on here, right!” He snarled, stepping towards the hologram.
"Yes, it happens." Again, the President drew back, putting his desk between him and the chimera.
He knew it went on under the guise of genetic improvement for the human race. Corporations all over the world used supposed volunteers to experiment on ways to slow the aging process and cure genetic abnormalities. He also knew the by-product; the girl children were sold on the open market as a commodity, but he was powerless to stop in against the entrenched interests of the Corporations. It hadn't started out that way, it had just happened.
"That's what I thought.” Scott snarled, slamming his fist into the nearest wall. Under the full force impacted, masonry crumbled and fell to the floor. "God damn you to hell! What sort of people are you!"
"I don't understand the question!” The old man stammered, eyes wide seeing the destruction of the wall. It was as if one monster stood looking at another monster, neither understanding what it was seeing.
"No, I don't suppose you do.” He went over to Skinner and kicked the sobbing heap.
"Easy General, we might need this pile of shit alive.” Brock commented, walking up to him.
"God gunny, I hope you're wrong, I really do, because if we don’t, I am going to throw this heap of garbage out of a window, a high window."
"I know how you feel, sir, but the time isn't right." He took Scott by the arm and led him over to the couch.
"Why don't you continue talking with the old fart and see what sort of deal you can make for us. I'll take care of Skinner.” Scott nodded in agreement. Walking back, he leaned down close to Skinner, whispering in his ear.
"The General asked you a question dog meat, how many?"
"Over three hundred and another four hundred in the embryo stage.” The man muttered. Even Brock's normal calm expression hardened.
"Where are they?"
"I, I don't know."
"You have a record of where they are?"
"Yes!” He wailed. “I need a doctor!”
"Tell me where it is, or show me and maybe I’ll get you one.” He said, dragging the man to his feet and out of the room. “Otherwise, I start breaking parts off you, starting with your fingers!”
* * * * * *
"It would seem that we now have a mutual problem Mr. President." Scott murmured at last, looking up at Westwood.
"How's that?" Westwood asked, carefully sitting down and straightening his robes. Time to start negotiating, he thought.
"You want to solve the problem of these aliens, is that right?"
"Yes, that's correct."
"We can do that for you." Scott mentally crossed his fingers.
"Just the two of you?" He asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Mr. President, there are five hundred us, all combat trained and ready to fight."
"What is this word, combat?"
"Just take my word for it, we can do the job."
"And in return?" There was the rub.
What did he want in return? If, as the President said, they didn’t have any weapons that meant he’d have to create them from scratch. That presented a whole range of problems, none of which he wanted to go into right now. Westwood didn’t have a clue about the problem he faced. To him it was just a matter of stopping the aliens from taking the children. Obviously, the President thought is just a question of getting some people who could fight, and going out and beating on the alien’s until they quit. The depths of this problem were beyond him, especially if he didn’t have a background in warfare. On another level, there was the question of how his people and the other souls would integrate into this culture. After hearing the President talk about that from his perception, he dreaded to think what would happen if a man in this era tried to beat one of his female Marines. He remembered the book about ‘future shock’, but in this case it was a two way street. From what he’d just heard, he doubted the President could even begin to understand the gulf that separated his time from theirs. He needed another solution, one that kept the two societies apart as much as possible, and that would depend on how strong his bargaining position was. A better way to look at it was, how desperate was this man?
"We need a place where we can live our own lives,” He said at last. “As I suspect we are as alien to you, as you are to us. We need a place to train and work out a plan of action without interference." He said at last. The old man looked thoughtful, considering the offer, or at least the face value of the offer. Scott seriously doubted he could see much beyond tomorrow as it were.
"Some of our best minds have considered ways of stopping this terrible act and none has been able to come up with anything that works. Why do you think you can?”
It was a perfectly legitimate question, and yet Scott had no real answer, without a lot more information to work with.
"What happens if the first time you meet these aliens, they, um... kill you and the others?"
"If these alien's come and try to take any of my people, I feel sorry for them, because none of them will go without one hell of a fight." It was sheer bravado. “But as I said, if you don’t have any weapons, then we need a place, the means, and material to create them.” If they were to make a deal, he had to convince this man he knew what he was doing, and then some.
President Westwood didn’t know it yet, but this government, or whatever controlled the populace now, would have to come up with a lot of money to fund an army. It was a fair bet that the President hadn’t thought ahead that far in his thinking, nor the implications of the situation once that army was created.
"Fighting is not something I, or any of us understand, negotiations is, but so far we’ve been unable to negotiate with them."
"Then what you have is a classic case of the dumb mule and the big stick."
"Pardon?"
"Before you can talk to the mule, you have to get his attention, that's where the big stick comes in. I'll explain the whole thing to you later when we have a basic of understanding."
“The question remains, can you stop these aliens from taking the children?”
“Yes, Mr. President, we can. I can’t promise you right away, mind you. We will have to build weapons and a lot more before we can take them on. When we do, I can assure you, we will win.” Scott mentally crossed his fingers, as without knowing what sort of weapons and tactics the aliens had he was shooting in the dark.
President Westwood looked thoughtful for a moment, as if consider
ing his options, he was, and he didn’t have many. These strange people did hold out a glimmer of hope that they could stop this terrible tragedy.
"I will put it before the full council and let you know our decision.” He announced abruptly, and saying that, he vanished.
"Well, so much for that.” Brock sighed. “I guess he didn’t buy it. I supposed we can expect the storm trooper to arrive next.” Brock commented as he walked back into the room. The thoughtful look on Scott’s face stopped him.