Somehow, he pulled himself to his feet and shuffled away from the broken glass. One of the maids would clear it up tomorrow, he told himself firmly. It was what they were paid for — and besides, they seemed to like Jason more than the other collaborators. The others seemed to think that the maids were there to service something other than the rooms. It reminded him of a documentary he’d once seen of the last days of Hitler’s Germany. The Nazis had joked about enjoying the war, because the peace would be terrible. And they’d wined and dined and fucked while their soldiers had fought to hold back the Russian tide just long enough for their masters to see another sunrise. Once, Jason had been disgusted, but now he understood. They had known that the end was coming soon, so why not get what pleasure they could out of life before the Russians stood them against a wall and shot them?
“That’s going to make a terrible mess,” a voice said.
Jason started. He hadn’t heard anyone coming in — coming to think of it, he was almost sure that he’d locked the door before he’d started his nightly binge. An assassin from the resistance could simply have picked the lock… Jason started to sober up rapidly out of sheer terror, even though he knew it was futile. If someone had come to kill him, he might as well stay drunk, just for a little anaesthetic. And then he managed to look up and was surprised to realise that he recognised his visitor. Mr Sanderson looked older and greyer, somehow, but at least he knew that Jason had tried to help the resistance. He probably wasn’t here to kill Jason, unless he thought that Jason might betray the secret. If the aliens knew that a defector had escaped their ranks, their reaction would not be kind.
“I…”
His stomach heaved and he swallowed hard, trying to keep back the tidal wave of vomit that threatened to burst out of his mouth. Mr Sanderson picked up a bucket and held it, without comment, under Jason’s mouth. Jason could barely mutter a thank you before he lost all control and threw up, expelling all of the alcohol and food he’d swallowed since he’d locked the door, enjoying what life while he could. His mouth tasted awful afterwards, but somehow he felt a little better. He hadn’t thrown up so badly since a marathon drinking session back as a freshman. Since then, he’d known better than to drink to excess.
“I think you need a shower and a change,” Mr Sanderson said. Jason almost wanted to snap at him for acting like Jason’s father, but he was right. Besides, Mr Sanderson was his contact with the resistance. Coming here risked exposure — and the Snakes didn’t need to torture someone to make him talk. “I’ll wait here. You go get ready and come back as soon as you can.”
Jason staggered over to the sink, poured himself a glass of water, and washed his mouth out. At least it tasted better than the bitter taste of vomit. Nodding, he staggered over to the bathroom and somehow managed to get undressed without tearing anything. He ordered a hot shower, but the water was only lukewarm. It said something about the nature of alien promises that even their most trusted collaborators couldn’t get hot water. They wouldn’t have found it hard to heat up a few buckets of water. And they’d promised Earth unlimited supplies of fusion-based energy.
The water ran cold a few seconds later. Jason yelped, before realising that the cold was helping him to sober up. Cursing, he staggered out of the shower and reached for the dressing gown he’d left hanging on one of the walls. It felt scratchy against his skin, but it was better than staggering around in the nude. When he managed to get outside, he was surprised and gratified to discover that Mr Sanderson had produced two cups of steaming coffee, one of which was pointed at Jason before he could say a word. It was stronger than his normal tastes, but it helped sober him up completely.
“I don’t have much time,” Mr Sanderson said. He sounded… annoyed. Jason understood. He’d risked losing his freedom of thought — or his life — to visit Jason, yet Jason had been thoroughly drunk and forced him to waste time making him sober up. “We know what the aliens are doing now, and how they’re organised. We need to get a team onto one of their starships, the warship. How can we do that?”
Jason blinked at him. The coffee cup felt hot against his hands, helping him to focus. But it hardly mattered. No one — despite pleas from almost every scientist and astronaut on Earth — had been invited onto any of the alien ships. And Jason would have bet good money that they would never allow any human, let alone an armed military team, to get onto one of their ships. The starships were their ace in the hole. No rebellion could take and hold ground with the bastards holding the high ground. They would know better than to allow any chance that they could be subverted, or destroyed.
And no weapon built on Earth could even reach the ships.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, finally. “They don’t let humans onto their ships.”
“We need to find a way to get onto their ships or we may as well run up the white flag and surrender,” Sanderson said quietly, but forcefully. “How can we do that?”
Jason thought, desperately. The entire human race depended upon their managing to take a ship; one ship, if what Sanderson was saying was true. But the ship was the one they would never even consider allowing humans to board, not as long as it was their ace in the hole…
He stopped. A thought had just struck him. “The aliens have taken over Andrews AFB,” he said. The Welcome Foundation maintained an office on the base, now that the surviving human military personnel had deserted or been converted. “They use it when they send people down to talk to the President.”
“True, although it’s more a case of talking at the President,” Sanderson said. “McGreevy is not in the best of mental states.”
“I’m not surprised,” Jason admitted. There had been a time when he’d thought highly of McGreevy — although she’d been a scheming politician, she had seemed devoted to the Welcome Foundation and the dream of Federation. Now… now she was just another collaborator, more highly-placed than most. “What are they doing to her?”
“I don’t think the aliens are actually doing anything to her,” Sanderson said. “I think she’s realised that she’s made a mistake and is too stubborn to admit it.”
Jason shrugged. It wasn’t his problem. “They fly a shuttle down from their flagship to the base, every week,” he said. “They seem to do it regularly, no matter what trouble or strife seems to be affecting the area. If you could get a team onto the shuttle, you might be able to get up to orbit…”
“This isn’t Independence Day,” Sanderson pointed out, dryly. “I don’t think that we could fly one of their shuttles. They’re not exactly built for human bodies…”
“We have at least one alien ally,” Jason said. “Couldn’t he fly the shuttle?”
“Possibly,” Sanderson said. He stroked his chin. “But there are a lot of things we don’t know about their security, or what codes the shuttle has to exchange with the flagship before it’s allowed to dock, or…”
He shook his head. “And we’d still have to get a team through the base’s defences and take the shuttle,” he added. “They’d have plenty of time to alert the flagship that the shuttle has been hijacked. One blast from the laser cannon or whatever they have to defend their ships and the shuttle will be nothing more than flaming ash.”