Alien Victory

by Mark Zubro

  Joe said, “You can get up higher in the mountains with the new diggings. We’ve continued in that direction since we got back with every new group of colonists. And you can use an ATV outside so you can go faster for much of the way. You’ll have to get to the zukoh and then go back out to get into a storm.”

  “I went over it all with Snek today.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  The next day they drove together in one of the ATVs to the last outpost of digging. The diggers had made an exit.

  Mike checked his pack and supplies then turned to Joe and said, “If I was given to freaking out and hysterically running around with my hair on fire, this would be that moment.”

  “We’ve been through mad dangers and high adventures. After all this, I can’t imagine either of us being unable to handle it.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  High up in the mountains on a shelf of rock, they kissed and hugged.

  Mike said, “I love you so much.”

  Joe said, “You are everything to me. I love you.”

  Mike climbed on the ATV and began to drive off. At the first turning, he slowed, looked back, and gave a small wave.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Two weeks later Joe relayed to Mike the latest message from Nek after his regular delivery.

  Joe said, “I thought he was depressed. He said he wasn’t sure why he was still bringing stuff.”

  “How long do we have?” Mike asked.

  “Nek said the home fleet was a week behind him, and this time Bex wants you and me dead. He wondered why you weren’t there to meet him as usual.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That you were digging high in the mountains.”

  Each night Joe and Mike talked. That night Joe stood on the plain and watched the storms in the mountains. They exchanged “I love yous” as they did at the end of every communication.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  “Shit! Shit! Shit! Mother fucking son of a bitch!”

  As he clung to the precipice, Mike watched the ATV hurtling down into the bottomless abyss that awaited him if he lost his grip. His curses didn’t help him keep his hold on the ledge he was dangling from. His aura kept the granite dry, but it didn’t cause his muscles to strengthen. He felt the fingers of one hand begin to slacken.

  Mike had spoken with Hok and Kench numerous times before he set out. The two climbers had found a somewhat easier way to get to the lake that involved less climbing and fewer ridges. It was almost two hundred miles longer than the way they’d climbed earlier. Even though it was longer, it took less time because he could use the ATV. The thing seemed to be able to go forever. Joe had reassured him that energy cell that supplied the power was geared to last thousands of miles. Such an energy pack on Earth would cause the fossil fuel companies to go bankrupt.

  That morning he’d begun covering the terrain that traversed a number of old landslides. It was raining lightly and the vehicle itself provided some protection from the weather, but his blessed aura did the best work on that.

  He knew he was only half a day from the deposit of zukoh. He’d kept in constant contact with Joe. They reported that with their radar they could track the fleet as it approached. Mike still had a few days. There were benefits to having a colony more than halfway beyond the end of civilization.

  Hok and Kench had said they’d go out to meet him. He’d come to a steep patch of scree. The wheels of the ATV had dug into the remnants of the landslide. The drop-off to his right was precipitous. Halfway across he’d felt the land under him and his vehicle begin to slide.

  Seconds later his machine and he were hurtling toward the cliff. Then the ATV flipped over. At the last instant, Mike jumped clear. He scrabbled for any hold. Over his left shoulder, he watched the ATV fall to oblivion.

  Mike didn’t know how long his fingers would last. Minutes? Seconds? His cling-wrap suit microphone still worked. Before he could get out a call for help, two hands clasped his right hand and two his left.

  He looked up. Help was here. Hok had his right hand. Kench his left.

  They pulled him to safety. The three made their careful way across the rest of the landslide. Clear of it, they got to Hok and Kench’s ATV. Mike’s arms trembled from the muscle strain as they made their way to the cave with the zukoh.

  Mike went down to the shore of their lake of liquid wealth. Mike got several drops into the tiny miniature eyedropper-sized vial. Snek had told him, “I think Bex was working with maybe a tenth of what this thing will contain, but I don’t think you’ll have ten times his power.”

  “Oh.”

  “No, actually more. I think it increases exponentially. Remember, all that I’m telling you is theoretical guesswork.”

  “Exponentially like the Richter scale for measuring earthquakes on Earth.” Mike had explained that an earthquake which registers 5.0 on the Richter scale has a shaking amplitude ten times that of an earthquake that registered 4.0, and thus corresponds to a release of energy 31.6 times that released by the lesser earthquake.

  Snek had nodded, “We’re not talking a numerical ratio but a power ratio expressed in numbers?”

  “Well, that sounds right. What I mean is a very tiny bit of this can do a lot of damage.”

  Snek had smiled. “Very true. You, a storm, some zukoh, your implant, them firing on you. What could possibly go wrong?”

  Mike thought about getting the confluence of events to come about. First he had to get up high enough to a storm before the fleet showed up. He wondered why the damn home fleet couldn’t decide to attack during the rainy season on the plain. Once again the universe was not conforming to his wishes. A lot of that going around these days, Mike thought.

  As Mike prepared to leave for the last stage of his journey, Hok said, “You’re not going to be able to go much farther up by ATV. To get to where the storms are now will be difficult.”

  “Will I need climbing gear?”

  “Yeah. We’ll go with you.”

  “You can’t be near when this explodes. I don’t know how powerful it’s going to be.”

  They went over the route.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  Mike left in the middle of the night to climb high up. He’d get far ahead of them with the ATV, then abandon it when he was forced to. He didn’t want to risk their lives.

  He traveled for a day high up into the mountains on the ATV. The storms grew ever nearer. He felt as if he was chasing them up the mountains.

  The scenery was spectacular. Infinite Grand Canyons and spectacular vistas surrounded him. He just had to find a way through them.

  He almost wished he wasn’t connected by communication with Hok and Kench and with the communications room far down below. He’d almost have preferred the quiet.

  In the morning the wind blew and the sun rose over the mountains, reflecting off the high clouds, and with the addition of the electric show of the distant lightning, it was beautiful, something he wouldn’t have minded sharing with Joe next to him. But absent that, he’d rather be alone with his thoughts.

  But the fleet was getting nearer. At the moment Mike faced a massive line of jagged cliffs, gray and pink where the sun hit them, and shades of deep blue in the dense shadows.

  Making sure his cling-suit was secure, his zukoh firmly attached, and limited materials well-stowed in his backpack, he set out on foot.

  He kept his aura on so to enhance the protection of his semi-spacesuit. Under it, he wore the flannel shirt, jeans, and shoes he’d been wearing when they’d been captured on Earth.

  Mike was caught up in the world of the technology he had that was connected to his mind. The storm on the mountain top in the distance swirled and grew. Lightning like none he’d seen on Earth flashed from mountain top to mountain top, from sky to valley. Gusts of thunder roared at him.

  He climbed higher. He must have been twenty thousand feet above sea level. Taller mountains rose around him. He stood atop a craggy tor. He was in the firs
t bits of snow swirling in the wind along the ground, but the sky directly above him was pristinely clear. His communicator showed him his most likely path. He’d climbed so high, so far, with little effect from the elements and the world around him. As he’d felt at peak moments before, his mind was now almost one with the technology of this alien world.

  His small aura surrounded him and kept the elements at bay. He’d switched it on to keep himself warm, but he knew it would alert the enemy to where he was.

  He trudged on. The precipices he traversed opened into vast emptiness thousands of feet below him. Bits of the vertigo he’d experienced on the first trip up drifted into his mind.

  He kept on.

  Now he knew what it felt like to look down into an abyss, but this was the abyss of his life, of his world, of his love. Everything dark, hopeless, and coming to a fearful end.

  He trudged on.

  His muscles were sore. His body ached.

  He moved inch by inch closer to the storms. But now he wanted them to get closer. He wanted them to become part of him.

  Mike had seen Joe use two communicators and a lightning storm from Earth to perform a miracle of destruction. One time Joe had said that the power he held in his hand and that had been implanted into him mind was limited only by his own abilities and imagination.

  Mike was about to find out. He didn’t know if he’d live through this. He’d survived the lightning strike to build the tunnel.

  Thoughts racked his mind. Would he survive his own power or see Joe again or his family? He thought of all the things that he’d not be part of in the future. The despair of confronting the titanic struggle to come nearly overwhelmed him. He faced the fact that it would be immensely easier to take a step to the right or left at the edge of a chasm and all of this would be over.

  The thought that kept him on was that he wanted to be in Joe’s arms again. He concentrated on saving his husband, his people, and his world.

  But he also wanted the ship Bex was on to fire on him. That’s why he’d turned his communicator on high. They would locate him. They had to. They would concentrate their fire here. He hoped. He could summon power, but as had happened with Bex’s first attack on him, he could also reflect back their own power on them. He wanted as much of the chances of the universe on his side as he could have.

  So he’d have the storm, their own attack, the liquid zukoh, and the power in his hands, and in his mind. He had to hope it would be enough. And if it wasn’t, maybe he thought he’d be glad to be dead so this hell of death and separation would be over. Despair nearly overwhelmed him. But his love for Joe and his anger at the universe around him kept him upright.

  Mike trudged on.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  That day as the sun was setting, Brux called Joe to the communication room.

  “We have a message from the Home Fleet.”

  Joe said, “Turn off the speakers for a minute. Do we have Mike on a separate channel?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fix it so he can hear us, and we can talk to him, but they can’t hear us.”

  Joe spoke with Mike. “They’re here.”

  The atmospheric interference was intense.

  Mike said, “I’m about a mile from the storm. I’m heading up. I’ll keep this channel open for as long as I can.”

  Joe swiped his hands over rows of black buttons to open a channel to the ships above. Joe said, “How can I help you?”

  He heard Bex’s voice, “Surrender or die.”

  Rix pressed some buttons and turned off the speakers long enough for him to say, “That doesn’t sound friendly.”

  In the communication room they heard Mike say, “Where’s the Borg when you really need them?”

  “Huh?” Brux asked.

  “Skip it,” Mike and Joe said.

  Mike asked, “Are Pav and the battle cruiser Star Crusher with them?”

  Brux said, “It’s hard to miss a ship that big.” Brux checked his readouts. “It’s not there.”

  After Rix turned the sound back on to communicate with the fleet, Joe addressed Bex by his full name and title, “Master Security Chief and First Army Commander and Enforcer of Central Government Commands, Bex number 7832, tube 9,877.” He paused for breath and then said, “What the fuck do you want?”

  Bex said, “You have been declared in rebellion against the state. Surrender or die.”

  Joe said, “Okay, we surrender.”

  Bex chortled. “We picked up your boyfriend’s signal. What’s he doing up in the mountains with all the rest of you down in the colony? He abandoning you?”

  “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

  “We’re trying to establish communications with him. This should be fun.” He stopped speaking.

  Brux tapped Joe’s arm. He pointed to a separate screen. “There’s another fleet.”

  Mike asked, “How can there be another fleet? I thought there was just one.”

  Joe said, “Well, there is just one central government fleet, but as you know each faction has its own armada.”

  “Yes, I know.” Mike sounded exhausted and out of breath. His voice cut in and out. Joe thought he could hear thunder in the background and then the communication to Mike went completely silent. Brux’s hands flew over the controls to try to reestablish contact. He banged his hand on the console. “Nothing!”

  Joe looked at the screen. On the left of it were the ships of the central government. To the right were the newcomers.

  Joe said, “They might as well be as numerous as the stars.”

  Brux said, “The central government fleet is far larger.”

  “How large is far larger?”

  “I’d estimate the central government has over five thousand ships up there. Pretty much the whole fleet probably with many of the factions in the Senate with them. The Sky Pirates are most likely on their own with about a thousand.”

  Joe said, “I wonder if that’s their whole fleet.”

  Brux said, “I have no idea.”

  “What I mean,” Joe said, “is if I were the Sky Pirates, and I knew the home fleet was here, I’d send half, or a good part of my fleet to another part of the galaxy and take over there.”

  Rix asked, “If the whole pirate fleet was here, would they be big enough to give battle to the home fleet?”

  Brux shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

  Another communication line crackled to life.

  A lilting voice said, “This is the command ship of the Sky Pirates of Msssk.” A deep voice replaced the first one. “This is Citizen Def.”

  “What can I do for you this fine day?” Joe asked. “And you wouldn’t happen to know what Bex and the home fleet are doing here?”

  Over the thousands of miles of space, Joe heard Def laugh. “You’ve got the most powerful person in the universe with power we cannot control. We want him. If we can’t have him, the central government is certainly not going to get him. If we have to, we’ll destroy everything on your planet.”

  “You’re in it with Bex and the central government?”

  Def said, “You have liquid zukoh in abundance. You’re either the richest people on this side of the galaxy or you need to be dead.”

  “You know about that?” Brux couldn’t keep himself from blurting it out.

  Def laughed, “We know everything. So does buddy Bex.”

  “I thought we were a prison colony,” Joe said. “Doesn’t whoever runs the colony have official ownership?”

  “Ah,” Def said, “mineral rights are another issue entirely. It’s who can take them and hold them that gets to keep them. It all depends on who has the biggest guns.”

  Bex’s voice came over the line. “Def, we can negotiate without having to listen to them.”

  The ship to ground communications went silent. The men in the communication room looked at each other.

  Half an hour of deadly silence passed. Joe and the tech people watched the screens waiting for death to rain upon the
m. Twice the communication line with Mike fizzed and hissed with interference but then died. They couldn’t talk to Mike.

  Then Brux leaned forward. “The Sky Pirates are retreating.” He pressed his fingers over numerous buttons then announced. “The home fleet is surrounding the planet.”

  “They’re going to destroy this entire world?”

  “Yes. If they can. And if the whole place doesn’t up and disintegrate, there won’t be anything alive on it for ten million years. Every cave will be crushed. The atmosphere will be poison. We’re all going to die.”

  “Then what the hell are they waiting for?”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  Mike’s communicator came to life. His aura still surrounded him keeping the elements at bay. The vast storm and the bolts of lightning and the crashing thunder continued to approach.

  “Joe,” he shouted.

  But it was Bex’s booming laugh that came though. His laugh sounded like the cackle of the villain on a cartoon movie soundtrack. Mike wondered if Bex had learned it from Karsh or vice versa. Or maybe there was a universal Snidely Whiplash app that everyone but Mike was aware of. He thought Joe would smile at that. Maybe he would if he ever talked to him again.

  Bex said, “We know where you are, you pissant, asshole, son of a bitch.”

  Mike thought I hope so, you shit. Just a few more minutes. How do I get you to wait that long to take the first shot?

  Mike said, “I’ve never understood your anger.”

  Bex didn’t respond to that comment. Instead he said, “Did you know, I was the one who ordered the killings on Tarwall III. It was my first time as High Admiral of the Home Fleet. I wished I could have killed them all. Some of my subordinates rebelled. They died too.”

  The storm closed in. A mixture of rain, snow, sleet, and ice beat onto his aura. Now you son of bitch. Now.

  Mike kept the communicator line open. He wanted to make sure Bex could find him, zero in on him. In one hand he held the communicator up to the heavens as Joe had. In the other he held up the liquid zukoh in its primitive weapon. No time to wonder now if it would be enough.