“I love you,” Mike whispered.
“Put the woman down,” one of the human guards said. “You’re coming with us, whether that’s dead or alive is up to you.”
Mike opened his eyes and tried to remain calm. The human was just a young man, but his face was spattered with blood, giving him a cruel aspect. Augustus had clearly done a great job of brainwashing this one.
But, seeing a chance to live for a moment longer, he carefully placed Mai down on a stool. “She’s ill,” he said. “She needs help. It’s her heart…”
“Shut the fuck up and move,” the man said. “You say another word and you’ll both die right here, you understand?”
Mike nodded.
“You can say goodbye to your wife; then you’re coming with us.” The man nodded to the croatoans to leave the room. Their thick shadows covered the ground of the workshop as the lights from the hallway continued to flicker.
Mike and Mai had nowhere to go. He turned to her, trying to think of the words, but none would come. How could he say goodbye to someone he’d been with for so long? She was his life.
The croatoans sped off to search other areas of the underground system, leaving the human guard. He gazed around the workshop and shook his head.
“Don’t speak,” Mai whispered. She winced as she reached over and grabbed the device, then handed it to Mike as she kept an eye on the guard.
Mike took it and folded it in the excess of his baggy sweater. He bent down and kissed her tenderly. “You’re my everything,” he said. “I will come back for you.”
“Use the weapon,” she whispered into his ear. “It has one charge in the capacitor.”
“That’s it,” the man barked, switching his focus back on them and grabbing Mike by the shoulder. He pulled the older man out of the cavern. Mike kept looking at Mai. She just smiled at him and mouthed the words ‘Use it.’
The guards dragged Mike up to the surface and through the burning wreckage of the town. All around him houses burned, people lay in the street, their limbs or faces bloodied and bruised, many of them not moving. He didn’t doubt he would join them soon.
Somewhere among the dead was Aimee. Mike felt a twinge of regret for her. Another one, like Augustus, who was taken out of their time and put into stasis by the croatoans, used as a pawn as though Earth was nothing more than a global game of chess, only the difference was, at least chess had the option for a noble win.
Augustus was so far from nobility that Mike palled at the idea that Augustus was once a Roman Emperor. What hell that must have been to live through, he thought, as the guards continued to drag him through the streets toward the arena.
Around two hundred of the surviving Unity residents clustered together on the fighting surface. Mostly women and children, with a few younger men amongst them. Hundreds of croatoans in the charcoal guard and hunter uniforms lined the viewing steps above them. Humans too, mostly dressed in the dark blue farm coveralls. All carried standard-issue alien rifles and aimed down at the crowd.
Mike felt a lump in his throat after glancing at tear-drenched faces and hearing the wails of desperation. This wasn’t supposed to be how it all ended.
On a sectioned-off part of the viewing steps, in an area designed to hold dignitaries alongside Aimee, Mike saw Augustus standing with his hands held high, shouting orders at twenty croatoans directly below him. They turned and began the process of shackling the survivors as though they were nothing more than cattle. The scene gave Mike a horrific flashback to when he first saw an alien farm in operation.
But then that was the croatoan way, after all. Augustus hadn’t fallen far from that tree. He had learned more from Hagellan than he would perhaps liked to have admitted. The human guard shoved Mike to the front of the citizens and left to join a small group of soldiers by the entrance gate.
Two croatoan guards held Mike by the shoulders. He still had use of one hand and placed it under his sweater, palming the cubed device. He felt along the top of it until his thumb rested on the switch. This time, the device only had one. With the power stored in the single capacitor, the whole operation was now much simpler. With no dish to use or battery supply to send the signal all the way across the battlefield, it had become more of a close combat weapon.
After a few moments, Augustus exited through a gate to the fighting surface and approached Mike with the swagger of someone who knew he had got his way. Mike spat at his feet, making him draw up short.
“Well now,” Augustus said, with a smug tone to his voice. “That’s no way to greet your new emperor, especially a benevolent and forgiving one such as I. Why, as I was speaking with Maria earlier on, she gave me the great idea that I might spare your life. You’re quite a useful man, by all accounts, and I could always use people with skills like yours.”
The guard brought Maria out, a rope tied around her neck, and dragged her to Augustus’ feet. He kicked the back of her legs until she fell to the ground, her knees thudding against the bloodstained dirt. But she didn’t call out; she just shut her eyes and took the pain, not wanting to give Augustus the satisfaction.
The so-called emperor took the rope from the guard and yanked Maria until she coughed and gasped, clutching the restraint with her fingers in an attempt to create some breathing space.
“She’s been very useful,” Augustus said. “But frankly, she doesn’t have your skills, Mike. Here’s the deal. Your life for hers. You agree to work with me and this young confused clone here can go free. If not, well, then she dies as does your dear Mai. I hear she’s having a few problems right now. I could help with that… or not, it’s really up to you.”
Maria looked up at Mike, no emotion on her face, just a sad resignation that it had all come to this. She looked away and bowed her head between her shoulders.
“Tick tock, Mike, we don’t have all day.”
Augustus withdrew a dagger and held it to Maria’s throat. Mike could tell the sick bastard was smiling behind that hideous mask of his, his eyes scrunched behind the dark holes.
“Wait,” Mike said, staying the man’s hand. “Don’t kill her, I’ll… work for you. I’ll do what you want, but you have to help my Mai.”
Augustus shrugged as he stood up straight, taking the dagger away from Maria’s throat. “That can be arranged. But first, a token of our partnership, a gesture to show the people here that we can forge a new way of life here, under my rule.”
Augustus held out his free hand and waited for Mike to shake it.
Mai’s last words came to him. The device felt heavy in his hand beneath the folds of the sweater. The whole planet seemed to crowd in on him, a heavy silence drowning out everything but his pulse.
He reached out his hand, the device in his palm. He clapped it against Augustus’ hand and wrapped his fingers tight. Augustus at first tried to resist, but Mike held on, staring the failed emperor in the eyes, watching as they grew wider and wider.
“Your time didn’t even get started, fucker,” Mike said, pressing the switch on the device.
Chapter 30
MARIA TOOK advantage of Augustus’ moment of distraction and edged away from him. Each time he held the knife to her throat and used her as bait, the slice became deeper.
Mike stood opposite Augustus with a look of defiance. He swept one of his prototype weapons around in a circular motion, pointing it at the hundreds of uniformed croatoans and a scattering of humans from Augustus’ army, who stood on the arena’s viewing steps.
Augustus turned to three hunters by his left side. “Seize him. I will not stand for this!”
The closest hunter dropped to his knees. He thrust his charcoal leathery gloves around the back of his helmet and let out a long extended croak.