by Rick Partlow
"Plenty if we lay low and wait for a quick bailout," Lambert pointed out. "Not even close if we try to hit them." He spat a stream of tobacco juice into a corner wastebasket, earning a dirty look from the governor. "But then, I didn't sign up to sit on my ass."
"We should try to contact the Mac," Jock declared. "If they're still around, they could pull us out of here."
Tanaka shook his head. "I do not think that would be wise. Transmitting from here would bring the enemy down upon us. They might not be able to penetrate this place, but we would lose it as a possible base of operations."
"The Mac's gone," Vinnie declared, sitting on an arm of the couch. "If they were still in control, they'd have sent the fighter to support us at the mansion. They're either on the run, or..." He left the sentence hanging, unwilling to verbally execute two hundred men and women.
"We tried to call for air support on the way to the mansion," Lambert told Shannon. "Nothin' but dead air." He shrugged. "Course they might have been jammin' us." He was trying to sound hopeful, but not succeeding. Shannon shared his pessimism: despite the best efforts of Republic researchers, the only way to send a message faster than light was to write it down and stick it in a starship. If the Mac was gone, they were a long way from the nearest help.
"Is it possible," Captain Trang asked, speaking for the first time in the impromptu meeting, "to set up some kind of mobile transmitter? Perhaps we could take the radio from one of the vehicles and set up a temporary position far enough away from here to be safe. Then, after the mobile unit transmits and moves on, we could listen for a response here, at our leisure."
"That's not a bad idea." Shannon said thoughtfully. "Sergeant Lambert, have some of your people dismount the radio from the APC. We'll work out the rest of the details later."
"What about after that?" Vinnie wanted to know. "Are we going to lay low, or try to do something?" Silence greeted his question, as Shannon considered the matter.
"It might be prudent," Tanaka suggested quietly, "to send out a scout."
"Yeah," Shannon agreed, grateful to have that decision put off. "We'll send out a recon team. Two men, on those dirt bikes. They'll take the transmitter with them and head into the desert. After they make the transmission, they can head for Kennedy and look things over."
"Who's going?" Jock wanted to know.
"I was a qualified commo geek in the Corps," Vinnie threw out.
"It's yours, Vinnie," Stark told him. "And we're going to need someone who's familiar with the territory."
"I will go," Captain Trang volunteered. "I have flown over every inch of this planet at one time or another."
"You sure you want to take the risk, Captain?" Shannon asked him. "It's our job, after all."
"Call it a hobby." The mercenary captain smiled humorlessly.
"All right then," Stark concluded. "We have a plan. You two leave tomorrow night. Try to get some sleep, and get something to eat. We'll outfit you in the morning."
The group broke up, scattering to find places to sleep. As they walked away, side by side, Shannon saw Jock nudge Vinnie, shaking his head.
"Damn it, it's just not fair, mate," he said with a laugh. "You have all the fun."
Chapter Eight
"Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit."---Bern Williams.
Jason McKay woke up shivering furiously, huddling under the suddenly inadequate blanket against the bone-chilling cold of the rock floor beneath him, trying to squeeze his eyes shut to keep out the intrusive sunlight that threatened to pry them open.
Hold on a second, something in his dormant consciousness protested. Sunlight?
His eyes popped open and he bolted upright, immediately aware of the jarring facts: it was the morning after the alien attack; he was sitting in the small mountain cave that they had taken shelter in late the night before; he was Goddamn freezing; and he was alone.
"Shit," he hissed, snatching his pistol from the ground beside him and coming to his feet.
Where the hell was Valerie O'Keefe?
Cautiously, yet with a mounting sense of urgency, Jason ducked out of the low, rounded cave mouth and emerged into the still-gentle light of the morning sunrise. Greenish-brown scrub surrounded the cave entrance, thickening into a nearly-impassable tangle of thorns and roots on either side of the narrow game trail that led down the steep slope to the clearing where he'd parked the rover.
McKay scanned carefully around him, but the rover wasn't visible from his position and he could hear nothing but the moan of the wind through the mountain pass. They were still in the foothills of what the discoverers of this world had named the Edge Mountains, but the jagged peaks all around seemed sharper and more rugged than any he'd seen on Earth. The harsh, white light of Tau Ceti threw the dark crags into sharp relief against the yellow sky, raising the hackles on McKay's neck as his hind-brain rebelled against the notion that he was actually on another world, eleven light-years from Earth. There was just something inherently wrong about that notion that at once frightened and excited him.
"Fucked up and far from home," McKay muttered.
Shaking his head clear of such esoteric rumblings, Jason carefully negotiated the path down the hill, kicking loose dirt and rocks as he half-walked, half-slid along the barely-existent trail.
How the hell, he wondered, had they ever made it up this at night?
He managed to reach the bottom of the hill on his feet after about ten meters of a half-controlled slide, then took a moment to regain his balance and listen again for any sign of trouble. Farther down the draw and away from the howl of the wind, he began to hear some kind of activity down in the clearing---nothing frantic or violent, just a faint creak of metal and the sound of shuffling feet.
Probably just Valerie getting a drink of water, he told himself---but no use taking chances. He hugged the edge of the path as he slowly made his way around to the perimeter of the clearing, the rear end of the parked rover finally coming into view. Last night, he had made an attempt to camouflage the vehicle with brush, hoping to avoid being spotted from the air or from orbit, but the brush had been pulled away from the rear of the rover and the tailgate was down.
Resting on the lowered rear hatch were one of the water jugs and the bulk of Valerie O'Keefe's clothes. A wide grin forced its way across Jason's face as he advanced further and saw Valerie standing to the side of the tailgate, naked, giving herself a sponge bath.
The right thing to do, he knew, would be to turn away and go back to the cave till she was finished. The decent thing would have been to at least back around the corner and announce his presence. Instead, he halted just out of sight and treated his eyes to a nice, long look.
She was, he allowed honestly, very nice to look at. She obviously kept herself in good shape, and either nature or a surgical bodysculpt---he suspected the former---had been kind to her as well. Letting his gaze travel up the soft curve of her hip to her full, rounded breasts, Jason was a bit surprised by the natural response that was pressing against the inside of his fatigue trousers.
He hadn't been this instantly aroused by the sight of a naked woman since high school, and he actually had to concentrate to keep himself from having a potentially embarrassing accident.
Well, McKay, he thought to himself, there's only two ways to go here: forward or backward. A wise man, a prudent man, would retreat and keep things less complicated. A balls-to-the-wall, aggressive Marine type would seize the moment and throw caution to the wind. You're not one of those Marine type of guys anymore, are you?
"Morning!" he said with cheerful loudness, stepping out into the clearing.
"McKay, you bastard!" Valerie shrieked, dropping the wet rag she'd been washing with and snatching her shirt off the tailgate to hold against her chest in a vain attempt at modesty. "Damn it, turn around!"
"I don't want to turn around," he told her honestly, slipping his pistol back into its shoulder holster as he advanced slowly toward her. "I like this view."
"Is that what you want me to be?" he asked her, stopping only centimeters from her, feeling the heat of her body and seeing the flush of her cheeks and shoulders. "A gentleman?"
"No," she whispered hoarsely, shaking her head.
Without another word, he pulled her into a passionate kiss, her shirt falling to the ground. Her body was still wet from the sponge bath, and he could feel the dampness soaking through his shirt, hot from the burning flush of her skin.
He broke the kiss long enough to rip off his overshirt and shoulder holster, then pulled off his T-shirt and tossed the garments onto the rover's tailgate. He moved forward and grasped her by the shoulders, lifted her into his arms, and set her down on the tailgate, a half-shy, half-seductive smile on her face that was about to drive him out of his mind.
He was far too aroused to be gentle or patient and she didn’t seem to mind; she worked his belt loose and yanked his trousers down over his hips with a frantic need that matched his own. They came together with an urgency that went beyond the physical and spent itself quickly with a flare of emotion that consumed them both. Jason felt the air go out of him and he nearly collapsed on top of Val, her arms clasped around his shoulders as his head rested on her breast.
"Jesus," he breathed.
"Oh, Jason," she hissed. "I've been wanting to do that for days."
"I've got a great idea." His head popped up, a wild glint in his eye. "Let's do it again."
"Race you to the cave," she laughed, grabbing her clothes and taking off up the path.
"Hey, wait up!" he protested, trying to collect his scattered garments and his pistol.
"If you aren't there in thirty seconds," he could hear her voice come from farther up the hill, "I'll start without you!"
"I'm on my way!" he promised, arms filled with clothes as he gingerly made his way across the rocks on bare feet.
This, he thought ludicrously to himself, would be a heck of a time for someone to take a shot at us.
"Oh, well," he muttered with a philosophical shrug. "There are no ex-Marines."
* * *
Much later, Jason watched Valerie as she lay unmoving in the crook of his shoulder, drifting in the exhaustion and afterglow of their frenzied---almost desperate---lovemaking. Her face was perfect in sleep, peaceful and child-like, with a natural beauty that stirred anew the urges that had propelled him into her arms hours before. He was tempted to wake her and see if he could manage to perform just once more, but she probably needed the rest---emotionally, if not physically.
He leaned his head back against the folded blanket they'd used for a pillow and tried not to think. Thinking hurt too much at the moment. Maybe that was why he'd let his hormones do the steering with Valerie. Oh, to be sure, the sex had been anything but unpleasant. What was that old saying? "There's good sex and then there's great sex, but there is no bad sex." This had been better than good, but not quite great. There had to be much more emotional attachment for great sex.
Curiously enough, he hadn't felt the guilt he'd anticipated: he'd initially thought he might feel like he was cheating on Shannon's memory. Instead, there'd remained an emptiness that no amount of frantic coupling could fill, either with guilt or satisfaction. There was none of the wracking self-doubt and debilitating guilt he'd felt after Inferno, just a curious, cold detachment from the deaths of Shannon and the others.
It was beginning to worry him.
"Hi," Valerie whispered, eyes blinking up at him groggily. "You still awake?"
"Couldn't sleep," he said, giving her a reassuring smile.
"Thinking about your friends?" she asked him, propping herself up on one elbow.
"I don't think," he replied slowly and quietly, "that I ever got to know them well enough to call them friends. And now..." A vision of Shannon passed before his eyes unbidden. "I never will."
"That woman, Lieutenant Stark," Valerie questioned gently, seemingly reading his thoughts. "Were you two involved?"
"We might have been, if we'd had more time," Jason told her honestly.
"She seemed like a very strong person." Valerie rested her head on his chest, teasing the hair there with her fingers. "I'm sorry for you."
"I'm sorry about Glen," he told her, trying to sound sincere.
"I know you probably didn't think much of him, but he was out of his element." She shook her head. "Glen just couldn't understand that you can disagree with someone politically but still respect them personally. Too much of Dad rubbed off on him. But he was a good man."
"Did you love him?" Jason asked her, surprised that he actually cared what the answer would be.
She hesitated for a long moment, and he wasn't certain she would reply, but finally he could feel her shrug against him.
"I don't know. He loved me. Sometimes, I thought I loved what he could be, what he had the potential to become. In the beginning, when we were both in college, it was fun to talk about forever and all the things we'd do. Lately, though, it seemed like I was growing up and he wasn't. I cared about him, but..." She sighed softly. "I'm not sure I've ever really loved anyone." She chuckled. "Maybe I was ruined for all other men by having Daddy to compare them to."
"Senator O'Keefe is an impressive speaker," Jason allowed, trying to take to heart her advice about respecting political enemies. "It must have been interesting growing up around him."
"Daddy always gave me everything I could possibly want. Not just material things, either---he was always there for me when I needed someone to talk to, or a hug or a smile. I think he wanted to make up for Mom not being there."
"Were he and your mother separated?"
"Mom died when I was very young," she told him. "I don't remember very much about her. She was killed in an explosion in the Czech Republic."
"Jesus."
"That was a long time ago." She looked up at him, her face more worried than nostalgic. "What about now? What are we going to do?"
He rested his head back against the cave wall, considering the question. Staying right where they were certainly had its temptations, if only they could find a source of water. Food wouldn't be a problem: the Edge Mountains were full of wildlife, most of which was edible by humans. He chuckled inwardly at the thought of them living like Paleolithic hunters, spending their days scavenging for food and water and their nights coupling by the fire. There was only one problem with that.
"We can't stay here forever," he told her. "Even if we could find a way to get water and food, we're only a couple months from winter, and I imagine it gets pretty damned cold in these mountains. Plus..." He shrugged, trying to sound more hopeful than he was. "Well, if the Mac got away, somehow, relief could be here in a couple months. We need to have access to an orbital comunit, or we could be sitting out here for months longer than we need to."
"What if the ship was destroyed?" she asked him, voice betraying the pessimism he shared.
"When she doesn't arrive at our next, scheduled stop, they'll contact the Fleet, and somebody will come check it out. It'll just take a while."
"How long?" Val wanted to know.
"Maybe as long as six to eight months," Jason admitted. "Maybe more, maybe less, depending on ship readiness."
"So where do we go?" she asked him. "Maybe Davenport, or one of the other, smaller cities, further south?"
McKay shook his head emphatically. "The cities are probably all occupied, by now, or else wiped out by orbital bombardment. No, we need to find something the Invaders wouldn't have bothered with." He looked her in the eye. "Maybe it's time to look up some old friends."
* * *
"What the hell's going on?" Vinnie muttered, lowering his binoculars.
The Sergeant's words were swallowed up by the early-evening wind that scoured the sandstone plateau, but had Captain Shao Chi Trang heard them he would likely have echoed their sentiment. Unl
ike Sergeant Mahoney, he didn't require binoculars: he'd been loaned a Marine battle helmet and was using its electronic ocular both as a magnifying scope and a recording device. The headgear's integral sight was linked with a tiny data crystal, allowing them to play back whatever he saw for the others when they returned.
There hadn't been too much to see until now. They'd ridden their dirtbikes into the desert for more than twenty hours before attempting to transmit a message to the cruiser MacArthur, a message they'd both suspected had gone pointlessly into the ether: if the Fleet ship was still intact, it was probably light-years away by now.
After quickly vacating the transmission position, they'd traversed a wide, curving arc around the edge of the Wastes, avoiding the farmsteads and coming up, finally, on the isolated plateau that was the site of Aphrodite's only spaceport. That was when things got interesting.
He didn't know what he'd expected to see. Perhaps he'd thought the place would have been destroyed. After all, the laser-launch facility doubled as a planetary defense system, and it would make a logical target for any invader. As it turned out, however, the Invaders had another use for the device.
The port was a sprawling, spread-out facility, with three separate sections clustered around the blockish control center. The large, paved landing pad was built for the use of orbital shuttles. The one that the O'Keefe party had arrived on was still sitting on the plastcrete, seemingly intact. Beside it was something big and white that had to be over fifty meters tall and more than half as wide. Trang assumed it to be a heavy-lift shuttle of some kind, although he had never seen its like before. An onion-shaped craft, it rested on nearly two dozen landing struts mounted around a curved heat shield, the cant of the numerous thrust nozzles ringing the ablative estrutcheon indicating that the ship took off and landed vertically.