Gregor raised his hand and swallowed his hate. “Hello, Mr. Augustus. Nice to see you again.”
Augustus didn’t acknowledge the welcome. He looked into the sky, and then approached Gregor, stopping inches from his face. Gentle clicking came from the two croatoans behind him. Their shiny gold visors always had a way of making Gregor feel uneasy. Not that he could read their ugly faces anyway.
“It’s been reported that another harvester has gone offline this morning,” Augustus said. “Are you aware of this?”
“I’ve sent my force to deal with the situation,” Gregor said. “I’m expecting a report back within the hour.”
Augustus shook his head and sucked in his breath before stepping back and taking on a calmer composure.
When the sinkholes happened and the croatoans rose out of the earth in 2014, Gregor’s gang thrived into a position of strength during the decade long mini ice age, taking advantage of the confusion in the dwindling population. As the aliens approached Armenia, he spied on them, and noticed them dealing with another human wore a mask: Mr. Augustus. He brokered a deal with the pompous old man. They’d provide an interface for the operational arm. Help control things from the ground.
“This is the third in five months. We’re not having these problems in South America or Africa,” Augustus said.
“Come back to my office. I’ll show you the results from the last two months. I think you’ll find—”
Augustus wafted his hand and sniffed. “I’m not going to your filthy den. Take me to the farm’s command center.”
Gregor closed his eyes and counted to five. If only he’d met Augustus before the aliens arrived. He’d be using his skull as an ashtray.
“Jump to it,” Augustus said. “We haven’t got all day.”
“Yes, Mr. Augustus.”
He led the way through a small group of trees into a wide expanse of open ground. Yet more orange tones blanketed the distant landscape as a sea of root crop grew from the soil. A healthy view—from an alien perspective at least.
Gregor headed right to the croatoan quarter—an area consisting of twelve metallic warehouse-shaped buildings with lightly tinted windows, thrown up in matter of days. Three on each side completed a large square.
In the middle, forty hover-bikes were parked in a uniform row.
The three buildings on the right provided barrack accommodation for the aliens. They were pressurized to allow the aliens to remove their breathing apparatus, the barracks having their own internal atmosphere. Through the window of one, three croatoans lounged in front of a large screen.
The three warehouses on the left were workshops. Croatoan engineers constructed and repaired vehicles and equipment either brought by the shuttles or from the field after malfunction or damage.
The three nearest were for surveying, training and breeding.
Gregor nicknamed the closest building the chocolate factory. Smaller aliens, that he thought looked like Oompa-Loompas, used it to chart the land and test soil samples. He would assist them occasionally when selecting the next slice of land to farm as they worked their way up North America.
The command center took up one corner. One of Gregor’s team always sat at the monitors, tracking the harvesters and areas covered.
The two warehouses next to it were a breeding lab and rarely used training rooms: The training rooms were used to school humans from the farm to bring up others on a harvester, in the belief that they were on a generation ship. It was all Gregor’s idea, and he was proud of it. What is a human without hope? He’d often say. The breeding lab contained pregnant livestock.
The three buildings at the end carried out food production. One was a slaughterhouse and butchery while the middle one carried out meat processing.
The final building packaged the food for consumption.
Nearly everybody ate the product delivered in silver trays. The croatoans, human livestock, harvester crews, and of course: the bastard hierarchy in the ships who would have those on the ground send up large containers of supplies on a daily basis.
The only people who didn’t eat the cream colored slop were Gregor and his team. He liked to keep some sort of personal standards.
This seemed to be the standard camp set-up wherever they went.
He held his door open at the entrance to the chocolate factory. “This way, please, Mr. Augustus.”
Alex came around the side of the building and whispered, “He’s waiting by the paddocks.”
“Thanks. Come with me,” Gregor said.
Augustus walked past a large table surrounded by the helmeted surveyors and acknowledged them with a raised hand. A couple nodded their helmets, clicking excitedly.
The small delegation arrived at the bank of monitors. Vlad swiveled in his chair.
After good results in Russia, Gregor was promoted to North America as the Operation switched during a seasonal change. He took key members of his former gang, or at least, the most subservient. Marek, Alex, Igor and Vlad had all joined him on the shuttle over the Atlantic.
“Vlad, take Mr. Augustus though events as you saw them.”
The small, greasy haired man pushed his glasses toward his face with his index finger. “During the removal of a resource, due to reaching the age of mental deterioration, the harvester took some external damage. The onboard team couldn’t manage to switch to back-up or control the situation, so I ordered them to the rear, for our guard to deal with. After this, we lost all contact. A report is due from the patrol at any moment.”
Augustus leaned forward. “Is this the same as the other two times?”
Vlad glanced at Gregor.
“Look at me, not him. I’m the one asking the question,” Augustus said.
“Very similar, apart from the resource switch, but—”
Augustus turned to Gregor. “It seems you haven’t managed to get a grip of the local situation. Are you capable of handling it?”
“I was going to report to you today, Mr. Augustus,” Gregor said. “We suspect one of our team with collusion. I’m going to personally deal with it.”
“Is this true, Alex?” Augustus said.
“Ye…Ye…” Alex said.
“Stop stuttering, woman. Is this true?”
Alex nodded.
“I’m not sure I believe you. But execute him anyway. Put his body to good use.”
“We’ve got him waiting by the paddocks. Would you like to see it?” Gregor said.
“That’s your business. I’m going to spend the day talking to the croatoans. I want to get a good feel about local progress. You better get focused on sorting things out. If another harvester goes offline, you go offline. Do you understand?”
“Of course, Mr. Augustus,” Gregor said, as he imagined strangling him.
“Meet me back here in three hours. We’ll talk once we know more.”
Gregor left the building with Alex. They cut between the two warehouses and headed toward the farm. Igor waved as they approached. He stood by the eight-foot electric fence that surrounded eight separate paddocks, each forty square acres.
Humans clustered together in the paddocks, like flocks of sheep, dressed in dirty white sheets. Most under the makeshift shelters, some sitting around, eating from silver trays.
“You wanted to see me, Gregor?” Igor said.
Gregor approached and held his arms out. “Brother Igor, we’ve had another harvester sabotaged. Can you believe it?”
“It’s the little wasp, I know it. That piece of shit,” Igor said and spat on the ground.
“Augustus’s pissed. He came down straight away,” Alex said.
“I saw the shuttle. What did he say?”