“The Bhlat? Why would they be sneaking around discussing that?” I blurted, and the answer came to me before the words were out of my mouth.
“It seems to be the game these days. The Deltra infiltrated the Kraski, and the Kraski hybrids like us. It seems only fitting that somehow the Bhlat had gotten to someone on the Kraski before they evacuated their planet.” Mae stopped and looked at each of us before continuing. “If you thought the Kraski were bad news, you were wrong. They were just low-level compared to these guys. Sure, they took the Deltra and treated them like slaves, but they kept most of them alive. The Kraski only decided to kill all of humanity near the end. Those transport vessels were supposed to bring their people with them. That was, until the Bhlat came and destroyed them.”
We knew this story, but it still drew us in: a huge intergalactic war we were now a part of.
“If these guys find out where Earth is, it’s only a matter of time,” Mae said.
“Do you think there’s any way to prevent it?” Magnus asked, chest puffing out a bit.
“I hope so. I’m starting to like this world.”
TWO
The trip to Washington went by fast. Mae rode with us, and Carey sat in the back with her. She had started off cautious of the animal, but had quickly warmed to him, and now they were old friends. Carey rested his head on her lap as we raced down the interstate to the capital city.
I drove to the Capitol building. The sun shone bright in the sky, and for a moment, I thought I saw something. Was it a ship? Then my panic subsided as I recognized the shape. It was an airplane. Flights had begun six months after the Event, and though most of them were still commissioned flights by world powers, they were becoming more and more common to see.
As we approached the Capitol, I was in awe of the beauty of it. There was something about classic architecture that appealed to me. Domes and pillars. They were a sign of strength.
We stopped at a security booth and we all showed our passes to the guard at the gate. He frowned the whole time and gave me a double look before heading into his little booth. He made us wait good five or so minutes, before grunting that we could go on through.
“Nice guy,” I said sarcastically.
“We’ve all been through a lot. Try to not judge anyone too harshly,” Mary said, setting her hand on top of my right thigh. For a tough Air Force vet, she had a heart of gold and an awareness of other people that continued to inspire me to be better.
“Sorry, honey. You’re right.”
Standing by the front doors, we waited for Magnus and Natalia, who appeared to be having an argument with the same security guard in the parking lot.
When they got to the entrance, Magnus was still red, and Natalia was laughing at him.
“Don’t ask,” he muttered, and we entered. I’d been there many times, but the sight of the work put into it blew me away each time. A quiet, spectacled man greeted us and led us through the rotunda, and instead of making our way to one of the massive halls, we headed back into the library. The smell of old books, leather, and wood wafted to me and I wanted to stop and sit on one of the chairs, to relax with one of the ancient bound history volumes.
Instead, we were guided to a back door; the man guiding us unlocked it. Armed guards were at either side of the room, and they watched us with either interest or duty. Through it we went down a spiral staircase that was dimly lit by some ancient-looking wall sconces. I had a feeling we were heading somewhere few were allowed to see. Mary was behind me and she put a hand on my shoulder, giving me what felt like a reassuring squeeze. I turned back to her and lifted my eyebrow: a “what is going on here?” look.
“Dean, maybe we finally got invited to the Senate’s cigar club.” Magnus gave me a nudge with his elbow as we reached the basement level.
“This way,” the guide said, leading us down a long hall lit by the same sconces. It gave the hallway an ominous feel, and I felt like this was going to be more than a casual “thanks again for saving the world” meeting.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Natalia said quietly.
“Yeah, me too,” Mary replied, holding Carey’s leash as he looked around, sniffing everything he could get his nose on.
We were led through a mahogany double door and entered a room with a few people milling around a large table. I spotted the interim president, Patrice Dalhousie. Since the previous one hadn’t made it, nor had the vice president, someone had to fill the spot. There was talk of another election, but the polls showed everyone was happy with the way she was running things. A proper balance of philanthropy and economic stimulus, at least in my eyes.
The president noticed us and waved us over to the large table. She was a striking woman of middle years, jet-black hair in a conservative ponytail for the meeting.
“Welcome.” She smiled widely, and if I didn’t know better, she was genuinely happy to see us. She gestured to the empty chairs. “Please, have a seat.”
The other people around the room stopped their conversations and came, taking seats on the far side of the table.
“Would anyone care for refreshments? Coffee, tea?” she asked. I found myself taking an early liking to her. Where someone else might expect someone to do their simple tasks for them, she started pouring us coffees and passed the cream and sugar over to Magnus.
I sat down, sandwiched between Mary and Natalia. Magnus and Mae finished the group off to our right. I held my cup of coffee in my hand, waiting to see why we were here. I glanced at the rest of the group and thought some of them might be familiar, but I wasn’t sure. There was a man in uniform; a lot of medals hung from his breast. Before I could guess who they all were, Dalhousie stood up. The room was silent as she took in a breath.
“We have to talk about the threat at hand. We asked you five to come for your insight. You are the saviors of our race. We owe you so much. Everything. It’s because of your efforts that we’re here today. First off, we want to make sure you have everything you need. If there is something you’re lacking, let me know and I’ll personally take care of it if I have to.”
“One of the others left behind might have saved you,” I said, unsure why I felt the urge to say anything.
She shook her head, and a few others did as well. “I don’t think so. We were hours at most from driving into the sun. It was all on you.”
Over the course of the year, we’d found out there were eleven others left on Earth. Their stories were close to the same as ours, and they were from all over the world. Clusters from Africa, Australia, and even two from Canada. The closer the hybrid to the Shield, the more effect it would have on their health. The ones who tried to land in the southern US, or South America, died in weeks, sometimes. Turned out the ones from Canada were only a day and a half behind us. They arrived to find the Shield gone, and a few alien corpses. I tried to imagine how crazy that must have felt, and how gut-wrenching. They wouldn’t have known what happened or if anyone had succeeded. They found out a week later as the massive black vessels broke atmosphere and lowered to the Earth once again.
“Thank you for your generosity, Madame President,” Mary said.
“Please, call me Patty,” she replied. “Allow me to introduce everyone. On my left is General Joshua Heart. Beside him we have Jeff Dinkle, our head of White House Communications.” The man nodded at us, and I realized where I knew him. He had a talk show on one of the major news networks, where it wasn’t unheard of for him to discuss extra-terrestrials, or outer space in general. Not the farmers’ fields and drunken farmer interviews, but more of an intellectual, theoretical discussion-type show. There were a few sleepless nights a few years ago where I could recall being bleary-eyed and watching his show, thinking it unlikely we weren’t alone. Boy, was I wrong.
“Across from you is Allana Lockley, and her partner in crime, Harry Middleton. I’ll spare you the old-world titles they would have had within the government. They are our resident physics wizards, and finally, we have Clare LeBlanc and
Trent Breton, engineers like none other,” Patty said, smiling wide.
It was an odd mix of people for us to be meeting with.
“You’re probably wishing I’d just get on with it.” She waited, and when no one replied, she continued. “We’re creating something of an Earth Defense Unit. We have delegates from around the world coming this week to convene and figure out a plan. The world will soon have a unified government. The one thing this Event has done is take down borders. Crime is down, we have space for everyone, war is almost non-existent, and we’re going to work as one to build a stronger world. One we’re going to protect with our lives.”
Magnus and Natalia were nodding, being sucked in by her words. I was getting a small knot in my stomach as she spoke, and Mary squeezed my hand.
“What does this have to do with us?” Mary asked.
“We need your help.” There it was, the favor, as if we hadn’t done enough for them yet.
“What exactly do you need from us?” I asked.
“We just want you to be on the team. The defense team. You four did something so amazing, and it showed strength, resolve, tenacity, and intelligence. Mae, you helped convince the others to save us, and continue to lead your kind. Perhaps sooner rather than later, we can have them intermingling with the rest of the world, rather than caged like they are. We’re sorry for the way it has to be now.” Patty looked sympathetic as she spoke.
Mae’s eyes glistened a little as she took it all in and responded. “We actually understand, and if I can be honest, appreciate the treatment. Most of us were ready to die and kill your kind just because we were trained to do it. We may not have thought it was right, but most of them are good people, and do want to be members of society. I can’t say that all of them are cooperating, but we’re keeping tabs on them.”
I drained the rest of my now-cooling coffee and set the cup down, the noise a little jarring in the pin-drop quiet room.
The man who’d guided us down here walked over from his spot by the door, and slid a panel on the wall, revealing a large flat screen. He touched it on the lower left side and a video loaded.
“What you’re about to see is what we’ve been working on for the last year. If we’re going to have a shot at defending ourselves, we have to be prepared,” Patty said, voice climbing as she spoke.
The video started playing and the camera showed a shot from the ground, probably filmed with a military vehicle driving. It was of a massive desert landscape, possibly in Arizona or New Mexico, or maybe even somewhere else in the world. As they moved along, we got sight of a huge building. It was hard to tell the actual size of it from this perspective, but I was guessing at least five hundred thousand square feet. Beside it was one of the gargantuan transport vessels. It sat on the ground, juxtaposition to the light sand, a black monolith looking out of place on our world. I thought back to the first time we’d encountered one of them in space, some way away from the sun. That’s where we met Mae… after killing all her counterparts. I had a lot of blood on my hands and wondered if there was any way I could decline whatever position they were going to ask me to fill. I knew I could never go back to being an accountant after all of this, but… I could be something else. I’d had enough of killing, that much I knew.
They got closer, and as they stopped, a vehicle akin to a large golf cart came to greet them. The camera showed the president and General Heart getting off the Humvee, with Harry and Clare in the cart. They loaded up into the unit and large bay doors slid open. Inside the building hovered one of the gray ships we’d flown in. The Kraski ships were there. Beside them were some black ships, similar in design.
“It turns out there were a dozen of these vessels in all the transport units,” she said, the camera showing them all lined up inside the huge open room.
“What are those?” Magnus asked, pointing at the black ships on the right side of the screen.
Patty smiled. “Those are prototypes. You see, the team here has reverse engineered some of the technology we found. It was quite amazing. I’ll let Clare describe it a little better.”
Clare stood up, her face turning a light shade of red before she started speaking. I wasn’t sure if she was nervous or just excited. “The things we found were quite remarkable. First off, you flew these ships.” She nodded to Mary and Natalia. “You know how amazing it was to fly something that doesn’t lurch or toss you around as it speeds up or slows down. These inertial dampeners, as we call them for a lack of a better term, are quite impressive. We learned how to simulate it and have tested it in our own units. After a few faulty runs, and a couple banged-up test pilots, we have it down to a tee.
“We’ve added tracking into each new ship, and” – the screen shot switched to a man putting on a suit, much like the ones I’d worn into space, only it appeared these fit humans — “the suits have been perfected. They have built-in communicators, and with the data from the ships’ computers we found, built-in translators too. We’ve tested them with the Kraski records, and the Deltra we had, and they work like a charm.” Clare smiled widely, proud of everything they’d accomplished.
“That’s pretty cool,” I said quietly. I, along with a couple others at that table, had experience with those Kraski suits, and imagined they would be much better-fitted to our bodies. I still didn’t want to be one of the people testing an air-tight suit in space for the first time. It was scary enough using one of them when I’d had no choice at all.
“To what end?” Mary asked. “Why are we doing all of this?”
The president turned to her. “They’ll be coming for us. We know that. We have to be ready for it. We’ll need ships, suits, communication…” She paused. “We’ll need weapons.”
My skin crawled and, for a moment, I thought I could feel the hybrid blood pulse through my veins, the transfusion they gave me to save my life still reminding me it happened. My back tensed then too; I tried to calm down and loosen my tight spine. Ever since that day, getting shot up by a hybrid that looked just like Mary’s dead husband, I got daily reminders of that moment. I always seemed to notice my back was just a little off when I thought about the Event; otherwise, I usually felt normal. Unfortunately for me, I thought about it a lot.
The video switched scenes, and it cut to large metallic gun-shaped devices in the field near the base. Large targets were on display in the distance. Had to be a few hundred feet away. The sound was silent; then we could hear a light whine. Before we knew it, the noise was constant and a red light widened like a sphere around the weapon shaft. One instant, it was there humming; the next, the shaft was gray again and a target far in the distance exploded.
“So, we have some badass guns. Good.” This from Magnus, my large red-haired friend. A smile crossed his face, and I couldn’t help but smile back at him being excited by this. The ex-mercenary was always hoping to blow stuff up.
“We have other things in the works too. Things the Bhlat can’t know about. My apologies about not showing them to you now.” She looked around the room, catching everyone in the eyes. “We have to be one hundred percent sure word won’t reach them. Sure, we’re in a safe room, but we can’t show all our cards quite yet.”
Mae’s upper lip twitched a tiny bit, probably undiscernibly to anyone else. I knew she wouldn’t hold it against the president, but she was still probably assuming the mole threat was her, since she was the only off-Earther there.
“Mae,” the president said, turning her attention to her, “we need you out in Long Island. We think there are some bad apples out there, and we can’t have that. The Bhlat name has been uttered on our surveillance a few times, and we need to know who’s saying that name, and who they’re saying it to. We also sensed a couple odd transmissions leave the area, and we have no idea where they came from or what kind of message was sent. I know most of them trust you. It might be tough to track down, but can you do this as your first task as a member of the Earth Defense?” She said it in an odd mixture of authority and hopefulness. I kne
w what Mae would say.
“Of course,” she said.
“We can go with you, Mae,” Mary said, reaching over and squeezing my hand.
THREE
The bar was my favorite kind. Lots of wood everywhere, and cold micro-brewed beer on tap. Carey joined us and the bartender almost told us “no pets,” until he recognized who we were. He didn’t say anything about it, just brought over a bowl with fresh water in it, and a piece of sausage. He quickly became Carey’s best friend. I looked around and thought about how much Ray would have probably loved it here too. My heart twinged at the memory of him.
“Earth Defense Unit. Who comes up with these names?” Magnus took a pull from his beer, spilling a little bit as he set the pint glass down with a fling of his arm. “It just sounds so ridiculous.”
Mary nodded but didn’t say anything, and I could tell she was deep in thought about the whole thing. She was probably leaning toward telling them no to the position, and I was leaning so far over, I almost figuratively tipped on my face.
“I don’t know, I think it’s fitting.” This from Mae.
“That’s because you aren’t from around these parts, m’lady. On Earth, it sounds like something out of a bad video game,” Magnus quipped.
“It doesn’t really matter what they call it. It’s probably necessary to have. But if they really want to honor us for saving the world, they might want to do it another way than shoving ships and guns in our hands,” I said, hoping I was on the same page as the rest of them.
Everyone was quiet for a moment, until Magnus barked out a laugh. “Dean, you’re something else. I’m with you one hundred percent. But what if? ‘What if’ has been playing an earworm in my head for weeks now. What if they’re right? What if these alien bastards are making their way here? The Kraski did it. Hell, the Deltra led them here in a centuries-long game. That means for hundreds of years, they’ve known about our world. That doesn’t bode well for us, my compadre.”
The Survivors: Books 1-6 Page 23