Charger the Soldier (35 page)

Still, it had come as a shock to find the
aliens' home world empty of life except for animals. No one knew
what the aliens had called their home, but the beauty of the place
had everyone soon agreeing to call it Neo Terra.

Seven billion people winnowed down to just a
few million, along with the destruction of so much of Earth's
surface, made living on Earth for some people seem like a
punishment. As a result, many survivors made the long trip to the
aliens' planet to start over. Even though it meant living
underground, the shining cities of that world had a brightness and
beauty that old Earth could not hope to compete with for hundreds
of years yet.

>>>

An excited voice on the other end of the line
said she should return to the office at once, as a news story was
breaking. Annoyed that her time off was once more being breached,
Pam made her way to the office building belonging to the world news
media.

"Good, good, you're back!" her assistant,
Sheila, said. "There is little time. Get to the prep room and I'll
brief you; we air in ten minutes."

In the prep room, Sheila began explaining
what had happened. "A lot of people witnessed the takeoff this
afternoon. The ship seemed to hover for some time just above the
city before it disappeared into the clouds."

Sheila and her helper applied make-up and
combed Pam's hair. "The military says the ship was stolen by a
group of young terrorists and that several military personnel were
killed in the raid."

"This can't be good," Pam said as she
fidgeted in her makeup chair. "Do we have any names?"

"Just one that I recognized. Your old friend,
General Harris, has made a few comments," Sheila replied.

"God, that man makes my skin crawl!" Pam said
flatly. "Which ship was it? I heard that we were several years away
from a full launch of the new fleet, and that back engineering the
alien crafts might push that date even further into the
future."

"That's just it; the ship wasn't one of
ours," Sheila replied. "It was that strange supply ship that the
military captured a long time ago. You remember, the one that they
said was programmed to always fly to the same planet and back,"
Sheila replied.

"The supply ship?" Pam said, with a puzzled
look on her half-powdered face. "What good is that old thing to
terrorists? Sounds more like an escape plan to nowhere, unless the
terrorists want a holiday on some dead world. What's the name of
the terrorist group?"

"The military won't say; just calls them
terrorists," was Sheila's response.

"I don't think I like where this is going,"
Pam said. She did her best to report on the event that evening on
the world news and several guest speakers appeared to offer their
input, all of which amounted to very little.

Back in the prep room, she said to Sheila, "I
hate those talking heads. They never contribute anything of any
real importance. Tell somebody to get my car. I'm going to take a
drive over to the base where the craft was stolen. Maybe I can kick
the dirt around and find a few clues."

Pam spent some time at the military base
being stonewalled before she felt frustrated enough to let her
hunger get the better of her. Outside the gates of the base was a
small diner, and she decided that was close enough for a bite to
eat. While sitting with the locals and enjoying some clam chowder,
Pam heard several people talking about what had happened.

"Excuse me, I don't mean to pry, but did I
hear you say that you knew who had stolen the alien cargo ship?"
Pam asked a clean-cut young man. He looked to be in his early
thirties and was sitting with some male friends. He was
well-spoken, and his friends seemed very intelligent.

"We have a good idea," the young man said.
"We work on the guidance systems for the fleet we're building;
those ships are going to be huge when completed. Each ship is
assigned a group of technical advisers, special people known as
Mavens that the military developed years back to aid us ordinary
types with the difficult math and physics problems that turn up
when we're back engineering alien ships." The young man took
another sip of his ersatz coffee and continued, "These Mavens are
smart, that is true, but, man, are they arrogant! My best guess is
that the military created another Frankenstein, and this time the
monster got the better of them."

All the men at the table laughed. Another
young man added, "This time the monster was one of those hippy
types, one of those guys you see on the history videos from the
1960s. He probably stabbed the guards in the eyes with deadly
flowers." Their mocking laughs rang out again.

Another young man, enjoying the high school
humor, said, "Wait. No, it was probably joints, like that movie we
saw in school. Those reefers will make you go mad. Quite possibly
they giggled the guards to death."

Pam sat quietly for a while listening to the
comments from the young men, and reflecting that her son, Gerry,
now twenty-one, hadn't indulged in that kind of stupid humor since
he was fourteen or fifteen. Finally, she politely excused herself.
She sat in her car, one of only a few operating in the world, which
denoted her importance, and after a bit, phoned her husband. She
asked him if he knew anything about the Mavens and he replied that
he did not, which was odd, for he was a high-ranking general in the
military. Pam flipped through the address book on her phone and,
finding the number she wanted, she dialed.

"Pam, this is a treat, you calling me on my
personal line. Am I in trouble or something?" the voice asked.

"No trouble, just wanted to talk to an old
friend," Pam said.

"Ha! You do know that my wife always checks
my phone calls. I am going to have some explaining to do tonight.
Out with it! What do you need?"

"Hey, making you the world's president has
changed you. I think I want my vote back." Pam laughed.

"Tough, you gave it; it's mine now," Danny
replied, with a chuckle. Pam asked carefully about the Mavens that
worked at the base and about the idea that they were responsible
for the theft.

"I think that's a new record for you," Danny
said. "What took you so long to get to the answer? That was like
fifteen minutes or so. I think you might be getting old." He
paused. "But all joking aside, you cannot run with the story. I
can't protect you from the repercussions this would have if it goes
public."

"That bad?" Pam questioned.

"Worse than you know. It's a huge setback for
General Harris's plans. We are left with only a small amount of the
resources we had, so now we might be in trouble," Danny said. "The
last three destroyer class ships we launched a few weeks back will
now have to double as troop transports, and you can only imagine
how the crews are going to respond to being locked up in space with
Hyborgs and Lycans."

"Can you at least tell me how many of these
Maven kids were involved?" Pam asked.

"We think there might have been as many as
fifty. We're still working our way through the data. Listen, I have
another meeting to go to; I'll have to cut this short. It was good
to hear from you again. Say hi to your man, and stay safe."

That was the end of the conversation with
Danny. Pam had her answer, but could do nothing with it for
now.

She went on sitting in her car. Her call to
the president had left her with more questions than answers. Why
would Danny say that releasing the information about the Mavens
could somehow jeopardize her job or possibly her life? What was it
about these kids that was so threatening? Anyway, how could the
military be so slack as to allow a group of non-military young
people to steal a cargo ship? The scrappy details she had so far
collected added up to nothing.

A few weeks later, Pam rediscovered the file
on the abducted alien freighter. She sent the information on to
Danny, who lost it on his desk for months, but eventually sent it
on to the military. There it again languished for a long time
before resurfacing on the desk of General Harris.

A man never known for his subtlety, he
demanded that forces be gathered and retribution be exacted. "Not
going to allow some pissant bunch of pussies steal government
property and get away with it!" Harris yelled at President Danny
over the phone. "I'm ordering a scout ship be sent out ASAP. I
intend to get to the bottom of this now!"

Danny, sitting in his office, pulled the
phone away from his ear to ensure he would not go deaf from the
ranting. "Let it go for now," he said, when Harris simmered down.
"With all the other building we're doing; we simply can't spare the
resources to send a scout ship after a dumpy old supply ship."

"If you say so," General Harris grumbled.
"But I won't forget."

B
y the end of the twentieth century, the Out-of-Africa
theory, which proposed that human beings evolved in Africa and
migrated out in multiple waves, had progressed from an obscure idea
to fact. This was the justification used by American presidents
after World War II for the military's space program designed to
find and colonize any habitable planet human technology could
reach. Like those primitives of old, the humans of the late
twentieth century felt it desirable to migrate from Earth to the
stars.

Early in the twenty-first century,
astronomers peering through their telescopes discovered a star that
harbored a small habitable planet. The planet was dubbed GHQ179,
though the news of this discovery was never released to the
public.

Within six months of confirming the viability
of GHQ179, the nuclear-powered Earth ship USS Rothschild loaded its
crew of 300 highly trained combatnauts aboard and, in 2025, began
the eighty-year journey.

Earth was invaded only five years later, when
returning was all but impossible for the Rothschild, and the ship
had at first maintained communications with the dying world. It was
decided that the first task of the new provisional government to be
formed when they landed would be to ensure that, should the Earth
fall, these survivors on GHQ179 would be trained and prepared to
one day return and retake the Earth.

Like a message in a bottle, they became
survivors set adrift, regarding themselves as mankind's last
children. It was decided, for security reasons, that communication
with planet Earth should be suspended.

After some thirty years of recovery from the
invasion, Earth's government decided to send the ship Loki, much
more advanced in technology than the Rothschild, to find and
reconnect with the lost group of humans who had set out back in
2025.

>>>

Gin always hated visiting her mother, a
difficult and disciplined woman. Gin often felt inadequate when she
compared her own life with what her mother had achieved and, as a
result, much preferred the company of her father. Gin's mother, the
great Hanna Massey, one of Earth's four famous heroes, had been
responsible for stopping the invasion of Earth by destroying the
alien command ship in orbit.

Why Mitch, Gin's father, had ever married
Hanna remained a mystery. Her father was such a kind man, and so
good-natured, unlike her mother, who was hard and unyielding. And
Hanna's discipline extended everywhere. Her home was always a
masterpiece of cleanliness and order. Her front yard was row upon
row of precisely ordered flowers, each particular color in a
separate row. Her short hair was combed with military precision
though the blonde color had now faded to sandy gray.

"It's fine. We won't be staying more than a
few days," Dan said to Gin. Dan was a good man, well liked at work
and in the community. He was of African origin, and most people
were curious about how he had survived the chaos, for Africa was
one of the first countries to fall to the invaders. The slaughter
Africa faced in those early days of the invasion was unimaginable;
almost everyone died.

"Remember, your mother means well, and she
really is good to Reanna, so behave yourself." Dan smiled as he
guided their young daughter past all the flowers, trying to make
sure she didn't pick any along the way. Hanna stood in the doorway
of the house, watching as her daughter and family walked up the
pathway toward her. When Reanna caught sight of her grandmother,
she bolted headlong, squealing with excitement, into Hanna's
arms.

Hanna bent down and scooped up her
granddaughter, then remarked to Gin, "I think you're letting my
little girl grow up too fast," as if Gin was somehow
responsible.

Their lunch together as a family was
unremarkable; conversation revolved around work. After the table
was cleared and Dan took Reanna outside to play, Hanna had time to
speak with her daughter.

"I understand that you're taking my
granddaughter and your husband on the Loki mission?"

Gin was a bit surprised that her mother was
already aware of this mission to deep space, and asked, "How did
you know?"

"Not difficult. One of the ways I benefit
from being an integral part of rescuing a planet is that I've made
a lot of friends. Friends with lots of contacts. I've known of your
involvement with this program for the last two years."

"But I was only offered the contract a little
over a year ago." Gin was puzzled.

"I guess that's true," Hanna replied.

"So, I'm betting that you had something to do
with my being offered the contract?" Gin asked, with a slight
agitation in her voice. She had never liked her mother meddling in
her life, and here it was again.

"Gin, I know we often don't get along, but I
have always been proud of the woman you are." Hanna's words now
betrayed only a trace of her German accent. "We both know that, of
the three hundred candidates, you were the most qualified." Hanna
busied herself with tidying up her kitchen as she prepared coffee,
obviously not wanting to betray any emotion, especially sorrow, to
her daughter.