by Joshua James
“I see. I don’t need to know why you had that ‘hunch,’ but I need to know what happened when my daughter’s ship came upon you,” LeFleur said.
“Well, we tried to run.”
“And?”
“And she caught us,” Ben said honestly.
LeFleur took a sip of his whiskey. “What did you tell her about your purpose out there?”
“Same thing I just told you.”
“And?”
“She locked us up in the Perseverance’s brig, which was fine. I would’ve done the same thing in her position, really. Anyway, she locked us up for a little while. Then she realized she needed some help finding the Atlas. So…”
LeFleur handed Ben his refilled glass of whiskey. “So you helped her?”
“I offered to.” Ben downed his drink. “But I lied. I told her there was a way to track the fold signature, but I sent her the wrong way while we actually went the right way.” He shrugged. There was no reason to lie about it.
“But she wasn’t stupid enough to just let you go free.”
“No, she wasn’t. I was stupid enough to think she was. Anyway, we ended up just outside this sanctuary station near the edges of your space. Sanctuary Station-33. The Perseverance jumped right after us, arrived minutes later. She must have put a tracker aboard. But waiting for them…” Ben downed his whiskey and pushed it back over to LeFleur.
“Who was waiting for them? The Atlas? Pirates? What?” LeFleur’s calm demeanor changed.
“I—you need to keep an open mind, because I’m telling you the truth. And it’s important, because you’re dealing with the same thing now, up there,” Ben said. He took his refilled glass and downed it, his third, in one gulp. He couldn’t believe what he was about to say.
“Go on.”
“Out there, the ships attacking you aren’t UEF. They aren’t UEF at all. Furthest thing from it, honestly.”
“If they aren’t UEF, then who are they?” LeFleur asked.
“They’re aliens.”
“Aliens?” Senator LeFleur fought back tears and anger. “Let me get this straight. You’re claiming that ‘aliens’ not only took out the most advanced dreadnought of all time, but they took out my daughter’s as well. And now they’ve come here to Vassar-1?”
Ben shook his head. “It’s the same aliens the Oblivion cult prays to and worships. Their ‘saviors’ are homicidal shapeshifting aliens.”
LeFleur shook his head and put his glass down hard on the desk. “I just wanted an honest explanation.”
“You’re getting it,” Ben insisted. “These aliens are the same ones who ambushed the Atlas, the same ones that killed my parents, and the same ones that killed your daughter.” He couldn’t read LeFleur’s reaction, but he stumbled on. “I honestly have no idea why they’re here on Vassar-1. And I know this is all hard to believe—"
“Hard isn’t the word, son. How about impossible?” LeFleur’s eyes were brimming with tears, but Ben knew tears of rage when he saw them. He hoped in this moment that the senator didn’t have a weapon somewhere down in those drawers where he kept the whiskey.
“Definitely not impossible, Senator,” Ben said, “because it’s the truth. Ask any of my crew. Hell, ask Engano. This is the horrible reality of what’s going on right now, and I’m sorry about your daughter. Truly, I am. From the brief time I met and knew her, she seemed like a smart, capable captain.”
LeFleur was silent for a moment. He closed his eyes and wiped the tears away. “Okay,” he said at last. He sniffled and poured himself another glass of whiskey, all the way up to the brim. He drank the whole thing in one go. “Let’s say I believe you. What information can you give me on these aliens pretending to be the UEF and attacking us?”
Ben sighed. “I honestly don’t know. Those things are hard as hell to kill. Bullets don’t do anything. Explosives can work, if they’re caught in the middle of one big one or multiple small ones.”
“Their biggest weakness seems to be extreme temperatures,” Engano said from the doorway.
“Oh good, you’re back,” LeFleur said with little conviction.
“I talked with your engineers,” Engano said. “They think we can move some of the hell-gel bombs into missile canisters, but not many. Which is good, because we really don’t have time to retrofit all the birds out there. We’ll have to decide if we want to give a few birds most of the hell-gel missiles, or if we spread them out thinly.”
“What are you talking about?” LeFleur asked, looking completely confused.
“I’m talking about killing aliens.”
“You actually believe this nonsense?” LeFleur said incredulously.
“What he’s telling you is the truth,” Engano said. “I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. Plus my intel has been telling me this for months, and frankly, I trust it more than my own two eyes.”
LeFleur opened his palms wide. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“I didn’t think you’d believe me.” She nodded at Ben. “Now you might.”
LeFleur closed his eyes and rested his chin on his fingertips. “So what exactly are you suggesting?”
“Something that will only make sense if you’re ready to accept the impossible.”
Nineteen
Clarissa found herself in her childhood home on the outskirts of Vassar-1. It was more of a farm than a home, and at twelve years old, Clarissa had taken to calling it “the plantation,” a term of derision that had infuriated her father.
At first, Clarissa thought she was dreaming. She was, after all, back in her twelve-year-old body—and yet she understood that she wasn’t. But everything felt too real to be a dream. She could smell the unique aroma of the farming machines cutting her family’s grain, cultivating it, harvesting it. And she could feel the hot, unfiltered sun on her neck. It never quite felt the same as it did in the central city of Vassar-1.
Clarissa was sitting atop one of the old abandoned harvester machines on the back side of the farm. It was inoperable, but one of her favorite places to hang out. She liked that it allowed her to see almost the whole of her family’s land, at least in that sector.
Clarissa’s family, the Morenos, was one of the wealthiest on Vassar-1. Their wealth didn’t come from working in financial fields, universal trade, or corruption. It came from good old-fashioned farming. Agriculture, once a dying trade on Earth, boomed with the colonies, and her ancestors were among the first to make a go on the dusty sun-bleached planet that would eventually become the AIC capital.
“Hey, how’s it going, kid?”
Clarissa didn’t recognize the deep voice, and turned around with a start. Sitting next to her on the harvester machine, where she swore he hadn’t been a moment before, was a man dressed in what she recognized as a UEF officer’s uniform. From all the medals, stars, and bars, he was clearly someone important. He had a mustache, perfectly groomed salt-and-pepper hair, and the most unnervingly obsidian-black eyes.
“I know you. Don’t I?” asked Clarissa.
“Do you? How?”
“I’m not…” Clarissa tried to remember for a moment where she’d seen him before. Then it came to her. “From my mission files. You’re Ben’s father, the commander of the Atlas.”
“Well done,” he said. “Do you know my name?”
“Captain Lee Saito.”
The uniformed man’s eyes changed from obsidian black to a normal human brown. “Among other names, yes. I’m Saito.” He looked out at the vast fields of grain. “Where, pray tell, are we?”
“I think…it’s a memory.”
“But where?”
“My family’s farm. One of my family’s farms. Excuse me, but why the hell are we here?”
Saito smiled. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Together.”
In the Shapeless’ Atlas dreadnought above Vassar-1, the false Saito stood by a giant viewing window, looking out at the destruction happening below. This phase of his plan was already almost over. Next came the
hard part.
Killing the local populace was easy. With the weapons on the dreadnought recreations of the Atlas, combined with the Shapeless’ inherent abilities, dealing with human resistance, especially in a surprise attack, was child’s play.
What Saito wanted, however, was what was hidden somewhere down there. To get that, he needed to dive in and sort through Clarissa’s memories, hoping that her enhanced role gave her access to secrets denied to her compatriots.
Saito walked away from the window towards the center of the room on the Shapeless’ flagship. There on the ground, still unconscious, was the real Lee Saito. Strapped down to the floor next to him, with a tendril latched onto her head, was Clarissa.
“You fought in the war?” asked Saito. It was a rhetorical question. He sat behind Clarissa in the cockpit as she flew an AIC fighter above the never-ending battlefield that was Europa.
“I did. Two tours.” Clarissa paused and flipped open her comms. “Falcon Five to Hawk One. This is Falcon Five to Hawk One.”
None of her fighter groups were responding. She prayed that they were still alive, because the AIC, as they often had in her lifetime, was losing the air battle to their better-equipped and more advanced UEF counterparts.
Clarissa weaved and dodged through anti-air fire as AIC troops advanced below. They were doomed. Every poor soul down there, she knew they were dead.
“Shit!” Clarissa yelled out as a super-heated high-velocity fighter ship’s round scraped her wing, inches from the cockpit glass. It was a close one. Far too close for comfort.
“This is not what we need,” said Saito from the backseat.
“What do you mean, what we need?” asked Clarissa.
Suddenly she found herself in a bar on Vassar-1. It was called the Flight Club, and was usually reserved for AIC pilots. She was nearing the end of her second tour, and after what she’d been through, what she’d lost, she needed a drink.
“Mind if I sit here?” Clarissa didn’t look up from her glass of Scotch even though she heard a man’s voice addressing her. She didn’t answer.
“I just need a damn drink.” The man sat down next to Clarissa. “Let me get…what do I want? Just a double of tequila, straight.”
“Double straight, you got it, boss,” Saito said. He was behind the bar. As he poured the stranger’s drink, he asked Clarissa: “What are we doing here? Why is this memory so important?”
“It’s when I met my husband for the first time,” answered Clarissa. The fact just tumbled out of her mind, fully formed. She looked up from her glass over at the man. He was tall and handsome, just the way she liked them. Then she looked at Saito. “You know what, gimme what he’s having.”
“But ma’am, you haven’t finished your—”
“Just give the pretty lady her drink, will ya, Ted? It’s on me,” the man interrupted.
“The lady can cover her own drink,” Clarissa said.
“Well, sure, you could. But I know that look on your face. You need somebody to buy you a drink,” he said.
“Oh, do I?” Clarissa asked.
“Been there before. I just trained a class full of fools who, if they’re lucky, will be in this bar in a year or two with that same face. And if they don’t use their heads, they’ll end up dead, floating in the middle of space or never buried on some strange planet. Sorry. Didn’t mean to get so morose on ya.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. Never anything to be sorry about when you come back alive, right?”
Saito served the man and Clarissa their drinks. Both of them thanked him. The man held up his glass for a toast, and Clarissa did the same.
“To the fallen,” said the man.
“And the brave,” Clarissa said. She’d done the old toast enough in her time to repeat it without thinking. They clicked their glasses together, and both downed them.
“My name is Blake,” he said. “Blake Ferston.”
“Clarissa Moreno.” Clarissa smiled as she shook her future husband’s hand.
In a jarring transition, Clarissa lived a brief glimpse of her giving birth to their twins, Sara and Mara. Blake was there, holding her hand. She wished she could’ve stayed there longer, before being thrown to the next memory.
“Now this, this is more what we’re looking for,” Saito said.
She was at Black Palace, the infamous AIC spook training grounds. Some of her best, and worst, memories were from the short, intense time she’d spent here.
Clarissa sat on a hardwood floor, legs crossed. Dressed in sweats, she was one of about fifteen fellow classmates. They watched intently as their teacher, Heather Engano, sparred with a student. She was trying to teach them how to engage armed enemy combatants at close range.
Engano quickly and ruthlessly elbowed the student she was sparring with in the face, breaking his nose. Blood spilled out over the mats they fought on. As if it was second nature, because in many ways it was, she then grabbed the hapless student by his arm and flipped him down onto his back.
“So…what did we learn?” asked Engano.
Clarissa raised her hand.
“Speak, Trainee Moreno,” Engano said.
“Expect the unexpected. Always be ready to improvise,” answered Clarissa.
Clarissa knew what came next. It was why she’d answered, after all. It was why she always answered.
“Come prove those are more than words,” Engano said.
Clarissa stood up. She made her way through her sitting fellow trainees and stepped up to the mats as the previous victim was dragged away.
“You were a bit, what do they call it? Feisty?” Saito paced back and forth on the opposite side of the mats. “Why this memory? Let’s let it play out and see.”
“Look at you,” Engano said. “So brave. You see, class, we have a soldier here. Sorry, a pilot. Unlike the rest of you, she didn’t go to the Academy; she didn’t labor through the evaluations. She has a family, friends, a life outside of this beautiful Black Palace. Does that make you jealous?”
“Look at you,” Clarissa said. “So nervous you need to turn the class against me.”
Engano smiled. “Always the same, Moreno, but you come back for more.” A split second after finishing her sentence, she swiftly kicked Clarissa in her shin. Looking to take advantage of the potentially hobbling blow, she turned her body, hoping to build momentum for a roundhouse kick follow-up.
But Clarissa was ready for that. She caught Engano’s leg, and turned it in such a way that she could spear it with all her weight on the back of Engano’s knee at an awkward angle.
Engano spun to protect her knee, expecting to catch Clarissa with her leg sweep. But Clarissa was already off the mat, twisting, expecting where Engano’s planted leg would be. She crashed down on it and heard an audible pop that produced a gasp from the crowd watching.
Engano did little more than grunt, but Clarissa knew she’d hurt her, and she didn’t hesitate to do more. Mercy wasn’t a moral luxury afforded intelligence agents. She tried to use her other knee to knock Engano’s teeth in, but the instructor dodged it and managed, at the risk of more damage, to twist her knee and shift Clarissa enough that she could strike her in the lower back with a pair of fists.
Clarissa stumbled backwards, her kidneys on fire, as Engano rose up, clearly favoring her injured knee.
“Remember, Ms. Moreno,” Saito said. “Expect the unexpected.”
Engano got into an odd stance. Clarissa had never seen it before up to that point. She would learn later that it was a martial art found only on a little-known planet, Uharu, several billion light years from Vassar-1. But that was something for future Clarissa to know. This version did what she was trained to do. She charged Engano and tried to land a punch combination, but the instructor split her punches and landed a bone-jarring punch to Clarissa’s solar plexus that felt like it caved in her chest.
Clarissa stumbled backwards, croaking desperately for air. Before she could recover, she found herself hit hard in her left ear, disruptin
g her equilibrium and sending her sprawling to the mat.
“You’re too arrogant, Trainee Moreno. Though skilled, you’re not the master you think you are. I could kill you right now, and what could you do to defend yourself?”
Clarissa barely heard Engano. She was too busy trying to regain her bearings. She wobbled to her feet, then fell down to one knee. That happened to be fortuitous, because down at that level she saw the seam in the mats that connected them to each other via Velcro.
Seizing the opportunity presented to her, just as her teacher taught, Clarissa grabbed the edge of the mat Engano stood on and yanked up and hard to the side. Unable to compensate due to her injured knee, Engano lost her footing and fell. Before she could do anything else, Clarissa was on top of her with a raised, shaking fist.
“Well, well,” Engano smiled. “We might make something of you yet.”
“Well done,” Saito clapped. “But why do you just fight with your limbs? Why not grab a weapon? And why not to the death?”
Clarissa got up, then helped her teacher up as well. She bowed and went to return to the group of trainees. But before she could sit down, Engano dismissed the class.
“Everyone, that’s it for today. Return to your bunks. We have spycraft in twenty minutes,” she said. “Not you, Trainee Moreno. We’ll have a chat.”
Clarissa stood at attention as her fellow students filed out of the room, most of them whispering about her. She paid them no mind. Instead, she readied herself for what she thought was going to be a punishment for showing up Engano.
“I’ve been watching you closely, Trainee Moreno. We’ve all been watching you. And what we’ve seen has been impressive, to say the least. At ease, come walk with me.”
Engano, still sporting a limp, led Clarissa out of the instruction room and through the hallways of the Black Palace. The massive building hosted all manner of classes to train their agents. Another wing and most of the outdoor grounds were dedicated to AIC Special Forces groups who never, ever interacted with the agents. They did their own separate thing. All any of the agents had to even tell that the other group was there was the seemingly constant sound of gunfire coming from outside.