Homicidal Aliens and Other Disappointments (28 page)

The next day, I have a training session with Catlin, Zack, and Michael. Gradually, more and more people manage to find their way over to us until there’s a large group — and not all New Americans.

Even the colonel comes by to watch for a while. He doesn’t say anything, but after the workout, one of his soldiers comes to get me. He says the colonel wants me to stop by his tent.

The soldier tells me how lucky we all are that we found our way to this camp, where there’s a real military leader.

“Colonel Hamilton is a good commander. He’s built a real community here. A place to fight for.”

When we get to the tent, the colonel is sitting at his desk, smoking a cigar. He has me take a seat. He asks if I’ll have a hard-boiled egg.

“Excuse me?”

“Hen laid it this morning.”

He hands it to me, and I peel it and take a bite.

“Good,” I say. “Very good.”

It is. It’s been a long time since I’ve had an egg of any kind.

“We have a thriving community here. We’ll be self-sufficient before long. We won’t need to go scavenging. We’ve got chickens and twelve micro vegetable and fruit gardens. We’ve captured deer, and we’re breeding a herd. We’ve got two goats. We’re doing a lot of positive things.”

“I see that,” I say. And it’s true; walking around the camp yesterday, I did see that this little camp feels like people have settled in.

“But all that we’re doing here could be taken away in a day. I don’t have to tell you that.”

“No, sir,” I agree.

“So you understand why I’d be concerned when a disruptive element comes into my camp.”

“Me?”

“You.”

“I’m just trying to prepare people to fight.”

“I’m hearing from my men that many of your people think you have the Warrior Spirit in you. Then I see you teaching fighting skills without authorization.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know I needed it.”

“Everyone has to learn quickly. I realize this is all new to you, but if you break the rules again, there will be consequences. You need to get authorization for everything beyond tying your own shoes. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now I need you to tell me you don’t believe in this Warrior Spirit nonsense.”

“I don’t believe in it,” I lie.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he says. “We need to make that clear to everyone. There’s no Warrior Spirit. There’s just us.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You can be an inspiration to the men and women here. You have certain skills. You will help morale if you fight even half as well as I’m told you do.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I’m going to need better than your best, son.”

He smokes his cigar thoughtfully, but then I notice that he’s trying to push past my shield and read me. He’s subtle, but I feel him. I strengthen my shield, and I feel him back away.

“Tell you what,” he says. “You have authorization to continue your training sessions. Only you’ll do them with my sergeant. His name is Haley. He’ll coordinate a schedule. We’ll post it.”

A soldier excuses himself for interrupting when he steps into the tent. He says Captain Franks is back from scouting. He’s ready to make his report.

“I want a written report on your talents,” he says to me. “Everything you’ve used them for. I’d like to have an idea what you can do.”

He makes me sound like a machine, like a weapon.

“Yes, sir.”

“By tonight,” he says.

Colonel Hamilton dismisses me then. He promises me we’ll talk more later. I can hardly wait.

I admit I’ve always struggled with authority, but I don’t feel the immediate trust with Colonel Hamilton that I did with Doc. I’m not even sure joining him was the best move. Anyway, it’s done now.

I find Catlin in the hospital tent, helping to organize supplies. They’ve got stuff that I haven’t seen since before the invasion, including an EKG machine and an X-ray machine. I’m impressed, but I also can’t help thinking that Catlin’s never needed a machine to heal. Her talent is that strong.

We step outside the tent, and I tell her about my conversation with the colonel.

She’s frowning. “An egg?”

“That’s what you focus on? I tell you I’m worried about the colonel, and you’re focusing on the egg?”

“You know how long it’s been since I’ve had an egg?” I can see her trying to remember, but she can’t. “Anyway, what is it about him that worries you, exactly?”

I try to put my concerns into words, but nothing I can think to say sounds all that convincing. Maybe I’m not being fair to the colonel. He’s career military. He’s tough. That’s not necessarily bad. Maybe this world needs tough.

I tell Catlin not to worry about it. I tell her I’m just adjusting. I try to believe myself.

We have some free time before dinner. We go for a little walk in the woods. We try to forget everything that has gone on and will go on. We try to be in the moment. It’s not a bad moment to be in, the two of us in the woods alone. I kiss her. She kisses me. We have more good moments, a bunch of them all in a row.

That night after dinner, Sam, Catlin, and I are called to the colonel’s tent, the command center. I’m starting to feel like it’s my second home here at the camp.

Colonel Hamilton has his three captains there. He tells us to take a seat.

“We’ve had some news from other units. There’s an increase in activity in the alien security centers. I had scouts investigate up in Santa Fe, and they report the same thing. The aliens seem to be gearing up for something. We think maybe they’re going to try some kind of major strike.”

“The settlers,” I mutter, flashing back to that endless fleet of alien ships. “They must be about to start shipping them down.”

“It would seem so.” The colonel sits up straighter. “We’ve been an irritation to them, and now they want to land those settlers and they’ve decided they need to do something about us. I think they might be changing their strategy. They’ve decided they need to act now, take the risk of exposure, rather than risk further attacks by us. If that’s the case, we might be down to our last chance to stop them.”

He looks each of us in the eye: Sam, Catlin, me. He lingers on me.

“A few miles from here is a sensitive target. We’ve scouted it. A small force of aliens is there, and the enemy has set up some sort of security wall around the perimeter. We need to get through that wall. From your report, Jesse, you and your friends got through such a wall when you escaped from your captors in Austin.”

Catlin and I both nod.

“Why is this place the target, sir?” I ask. I can’t imagine how getting into any place, no matter how sensitive, could help us right now.

The colonel takes a long drag from his cigar. “The target is a missile facility. A
nuclear
missile facility,” he stresses.

“You want us to —” I start to say.

“I’m ordering you to, soldier. We’re going to get into that missile facility, and we are going to deliver some hurt on those aliens. For once we are going to take the battle to them.”

“You think the missiles can get to their ships?” I feel uneasy. Nuclear weapons. He wants to fire nuclear weapons.

The colonel tosses his cigar on the ground and puts it out with his boot. “Unfortunately, we can’t be sure they would make it. And we can’t take the risk of being wrong. We need a plan we can be sure of. As I said before, this could be our last chance.”

I glance at Catlin and Sam. If they’re making sense of this, they’re pretty good at hiding it.

“What are you saying, sir?” I ask.

“They love our green earth and our blue skies. It’s what makes this planet desirable to them. So we have to take away those things, make them want to settle somewhere else. I’ve got thirty-six nuclear missiles in my facility — my former command, I should say. Thirty-six. We can hit thirty-six major cities where the aliens have bases. I believe that hitting those thirty-six cities, besides doing major damage to the settlements, will cause a nuclear fall. It will send them packing for good. No more green. No more blue. No more aliens.”

Catlin says, “But that would . . . I mean, wouldn’t that destroy everything?”

“We’re not talking about a nuclear winter,” Colonel Hamilton snaps, clearly frustrated by our reactions. “This would be a carefully orchestrated attack, the effects of which would be strictly limited to a nuclear fall.”

He goes on to explain just what this “nuclear fall” would look like. Within a few days, the world would be covered in smoke. It would be so heavy it would block the sun. Temperatures would cool a few important degrees, killing off those lush green plants the aliens love so much. Rainfall would decrease, drying up all but the biggest rivers. Earth wouldn’t be destroyed, though. It would be harmed. It would be wounded. But like a wounded soldier, it would heal, and when it did the aliens would be long gone.

“We’re talking five or six years, tops,” the colonel says. “And the effects might even be less than those I’ve described. We can survive it. Earth will take a hit, but it will survive, and so will we.”

“Bomb our own cities,” Catlin says. “Kill everything that’s alive? What about the animals and the plants?”

“I don’t like it, either,” Colonel Hamilton says. “I’ve thought about this long and hard, and the truth of the matter is that we have no choice. If we don’t act now, we won’t have a chance. Humankind will cease to exist. We’re in a unique position here. This was my missile facility. I know the codes. We’ve got a chance, but we can’t afford to get it wrong.”

“There has to be another way,” I say. “If we fire some missiles at their ships, even if they miss, the aliens will at least know about us. Know we’re here. If others know besides just those in the company, maybe the settlement will be stopped.”

“And what if they don’t care?” Colonel Hamilton says. “We can’t take that chance. I’ve made my decision. We will carry out our mission tonight. We leave at oh-one-hundred.”

Then he dismisses us.

Catlin is really upset. “We can’t do this,” she says once we’re outside the colonel’s tent. “We can’t let him do this.”

Sam says, “I don’t like this any more than you, but think about two things: One, he’s given an order. If we don’t follow it, there are going to be serious consequences. Two, what if this is our only chance to defeat the aliens? It looked impossible before. This is a way to do it. This is a way to save humankind. Maybe this is the third way Running Bird was talking about.”

“But —” Catlin says.

“No buts. We have our orders.” Sam says she’s going to get some rest before we go and we should do the same.

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” Catlin asks me. “This can’t be the third way. The price is too high.”

We go back to our tents. We talk it over. What about drinking water and food supplies and people close to those cities? And fallout? And what if it isn’t just a nuclear fall but a nuclear winter?

There are too many what-ifs.

But there’s one big what-if in favor of acting. What if we do nothing? What if all those new settlers land?

If they land, there is no what-if. It will all be decided.

We leave at exactly one o’clock. It’s dark and cool, and the stars fill the sky. There are thirty of us. We take a jeep and three trucks down the mountain, a caravan, with lights on. Catlin and I ride with Captain Wilkes in the jeep. Sam and Michael are farther back, in one of the big trucks loaded with armed soldiers. Somehow Sam managed to convince the colonel to let Michael come. I can’t decide if I’m glad to have him along for what might be our final mission or if I’d rather he stayed back at the camp, where he might be safer.