No. No we don’t; at least not that I’m aware of but I wasn’t about to throw in the towel.
One of the most overlooked benefits of military training is the sheer exhaustion you go through in boot camp and then if you are so Blessed by God to be selected into the Special Forces you discover a whole new level of physical endurance and mental toughness that gives you a confidence that few others could ever know. I didn’t know how we were going to do this; I didn’t have any idea how Earth could survive but I did know that we were going to keep putting one foot ahead of the other and keep going.
Right now though I was tired. I glanced at my watch and realized it had been almost a 20 hour day—for both me and my team.
“Semi, I thank you for your candor and I’m going to take you up on your offer to put more thought into our situation, but for now my team is exhausted. With your permission I’m going to hit the sack and we can continue this tomorrow.”
She responded with an, “Of course,” and one of the Stigerians quickly appeared offering to show us our rooms.
“Are you coming doctor?” I asked Anzio.
“You go ahead major,” he responded. “I’m going to be talking a while longer with our wonderful host.”
Another wonderful benefit of having gone through military training is that you learn how to wake up instantly no matter how tired you are. It couldn’t have been more than four hours later that Anzio was shouting my name and shaking my shoulder.
“Major! We have a problem,” he said in a somewhat more controlled voice. “We’ve lost contact with the team on Stiger.”
I was already velcroing my boots when I asked, “What do we know.”
“I’m not sure but they just woke Semi and they seemed very upset. Apparently her staff was trying to contact their enclave on Stiger to make arrangements for our return but couldn’t reach anybody. I thought you should know.”
“Thanks Anzio. Get Silva and Dr. Decker up and ready to go. Where’s Semi—I’ll see what else I can find out.” I almost asked him how he knew Semi’s people were upset when they woke her but it just wouldn’t be fair.
I found her in the main room and noticed Dien and one of the Stigerians carrying boxes and bundles up the stairs and presumably to the ship.
As usual, Captains Hiromi and Kamiko were ahead of me and were packed; ready to ship out.
“I assumed you would want to leave now,” was the first thing Semi said.
“I take it that it’s not normal for you to lose contact?”
“Major I do not want to cause you distress but it is all but impossible unless the equipment has been destroyed. I try to never speculate but I am very concerned for our people—as I am sure you are.”
She was speaking to me but she was looking at Anzio.
“Semi, at your best speed how long will it take us to get back?” I asked.
“It will be the same major; a few hours. There is nothing we can do to shorten it.”
The trip out to the retreat had been relaxed and pleasant. Our return was excruciating. It was my job to be prepared for every contingency so my mind kept playing morbid images over and over; everything from an asteroid strike that would doom the planet to an invading army of Noridians. From everything Semi had said I just couldn’t see an innocent explanation; something had gone horribly wrong.
I knew that the team, and Julie, were in good hands. Iron Jaw was one of the very best and he had 14 of Earth’s finest warriors with him—which wouldn’t matter a bit if that valley was now a bunch of molten magma.
I pulled Captains Hiromi and Kamiko together and they confirmed that Silva and Dien were insisting they had no weapons—which was the same response I’d received repeatedly from Semi.
When we finally arrived in orbit around Stiger we discovered a Noridian ship that was much larger than ours but smaller than our old one that used to be sitting above what was now a fiery crater at the apex of the valley. The valley itself and the city thank God, were still there.
After spending a few moments in discussions with Semi, Silva came over and explained that the Noridian ship was giving only automatic responses to our hails. He believed it was unoccupied and further explained that this might be good news; the ship should have automatically relayed our hails to the Noridian ground team. If they weren’t answering it was probably because they couldn’t.
At Silva’s suggestion and with my permission we matched orbits and he managed to board the ship. Once we established communication with each other we deorbited and overflew the city. It looked deserted.
I ordered Silva to give us air cover and had our ship land just outside the building the Coridian enclave had been housed in. It was only later that I realized I hadn’t had any authority to order any of them around but if they objected they never said anything.
Selika found us as we were exploring the devastation on the Coridian floor. It was probably a good thing we didn’t have weapons. After seeing the bodies of 23 of our team members respectfully laid out in the foyer on the ground floor, and with the word ‘Bravo’ spray-painted across the closest wall, we were all a little bit ‘twitchy.’ She explained to us what had happened, including Major Reynolds taking the surviving team members out of the city.
When I relayed the information to Silva he gained altitude and promptly reported that he’d located several hover cars following an erratic course at high speed roughly 117 miles south of the city. He asked if he should fly out to them and I told him ‘no’—if he was sure he had total control of that ship to come collect us.
Point Bravo referred to a copse of trees 300 yards from a small group of buildings we’d noticed from orbit when we’d first arrived. It was located 37.3 miles ‘southeast’ of the city. I assumed that Mike used the hover cars to get everyone there but then sent them on so that he couldn’t be traced.
While we were waiting for Silva to land I went and looked at each of the 23 bodies. I’d put myself into that wartime mindset that hardens our soul in self-defense so we can go on and do the things we need to do, but I still swallowed a lot easier when I realized she wasn’t one of the 23.
Chapter 31
Dr. Julie Schein
It just wasn’t fair.
She still had a vivid memory of saying this to her father—one of the few childhood memories she hadn’t blocked out. She must have been five or six? She knew it was still a few years before he’d died. Something in her life wasn’t fair and when she told him he had just laughed. He picked her up and hugged her and told her that life wasn’t fair. It wasn’t supposed to be; it’s how we deal with an unfair thing that’s important.
So how do you deal with the imminent death of yourself and everyone you care about?
She’d already said a prayer and was probably calmer than she had a right to be but… it still wasn’t fair.
They’d arrived at what Major Reynolds called Assembly Point Bravo not more than 15 minutes ago. They were hiding in the trees because he’d told them that the Noridian ship still in orbit might very well come after them.
And apparently it was.
They were deep enough in to (hopefully) be out of sight, but close enough to the tree-line that they could see the Noridian ship as it slowly approached. It was coming straight for them so sending the hover cars away and hiding in the trees hadn’t fooled anyone.
Mark had been called over to where Iron Jaw was squatted down behind what looked like a huge triple trunked oak and was trapped there once the Noridian ship was sighted. Julie almost wanted to laugh; the closest person was maybe ten feet away but everyone she could see was keeping their head down even though the ship obviously knew exactly where they were.