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  “What are you all looking at? Your champion is back and he needs our help.” That seemed to galvanize them. “Tanya, get his boots off.” I don’t know what she did with those shoes, but I never saw them again. “Gabriella, get some water! Rebecca, help me with his pants and shirt!” And all of a sudden the house was a blaze of activity. I was stripped, scrubbed, redressed, and put to bed, all without me doing much more than moving the appropriate body part when asked to. I slept remarkably well that night. Maybe that’s how madmen do it. Without a conscience, I mean. How else after the horrors I had inflicted that night could I be otherwise? That was the last waking thought I had that evening. I awoke the following morning feeling absolutely refreshed; I couldn’t begin to explain the lightness in my heart. Had I lost that much humanity? The womenfolk for the most part were very wary around me. How far over the line had I traveled and would I or could I even come back over it? Did I want to? It was so much easier on this side. No conscience, no worries, no pain. I felt great, yet I knew that was a horrible thought. I must have had some horrible facial expression because the women avoided me. You would have thought I had leprosy. It was later I learned it was the lifeless grin on my face that had scared all of them, even Deb and Steph. Nobody dared disturb me that day. What was going on? I felt great and no one was even congratulating me on my win, the ingrates.

  “Huh, I wonder what ranking I am today.” I yelled and laughed. The women all but tried to blend in with the surrounding furniture.

  “I’m going back to my room. I strongly suggest nobody make any noise.” I don’t even think they were breathing at the moment. Hours later, a brunette named Bridgitte dropped a bowl on the floor and all the women froze, so sure they were of me busting out of that room and killing her. Bridgitte wept uncontrollably for an hour. I didn’t even know the whole thing happened, I had been dead asleep almost from the moment I entered my room.

  CHAPTER 41

  Vail

  “Hey, Colonel, you got a minute?” One of the newest enlisted men in the militia poked his head into the command tent.

  “What can I do for you, Private—” Paul hesitated a moment—“Anderson.” Paul took great pride in learning the names of every man and woman in his new army, from highest to the lowest.

  “Sir.” Paul still had not gotten used to that yet, but he was learning. “Sir, I was in town this morning picking up some supplies and I ran into this gentleman outside of town. He said he had heard rumors about what was going on up here and that he may be interested in rendering his services.”

  “Did he give you a name, Private?”

  “I think he said ‘More Rain’ or something to that effect.”

  “Was he talking code, soldier?”

  “Sir?” the private looked at Paul with a comical expression.

  “Don’t worry about it, Anderson. Just send him in on your way out, please.”

  “Yes sir. Right away, sir.”

  “Ah, so you’re the infamous Colonel Ginson I’ve heard so much about.” Captain Moirane said as he sauntered into the room. He was not happy with his new assignment and it showed. Paul had known sooner or later Burkhalter or the FBI or CIA or one of those alphabet organizations was going to send a mole. He had no idea it was going to be such a lightly veiled placement.

  “What can I do for you, Mr.…”

  “Moirane. Sam Moirane.”

  “Mr. Moirane.”

  “I came up here to see what exactly was going on and if it was to my liking whether or not I would stay.”

  “Aren’t you a little old to be playing army, Mr. Moirane?” Paul asked with a slight smile on his face. This could actually work to his advantage. Having a known spy, he could be used as he saw fit. He could make it look like these guys were just a bunch of goof balls with some extra ammunition. That would greatly ease the prying eyes if they thought they were a bunch of buffoons.

  “I’ll have you know, Colonel Ginson, that I still can run three miles in under twenty minutes,” Moirane said, heat starting to flare under his collar. He was a decorated Captain in the Marines and here he was taking heat from a self-appointed Colonel of a ragtag bunch of near fugitives.

  “Have much need for that out in the civilian world, do you, Mr. Moirane?”

  Moirane eased back a bit. He had almost blown his cover in the first three minutes and he had no desire to tell the General he couldn’t even get enlisted into this quasi-military endeavor.

  “Well, if you can’t tell by looking at me, I’m prior military.”

  “Prior, Mr. Moirane?” And now it was Paul’s turn to ease up. If he led on that he knew what this man was up to they’d just send another who might be much more difficult to root out. Who knew, maybe this guy was here to take the pressure off the real spy. Oh, what a wicked web we weave. Gotta love the internet though. Paul had background checks on every one of his troops and he had no desire to bring down any more heat on this fledgling organization than absolutely necessary. He really only had two or three people in his unit whom he had some unanswered questions about and they were not so much as able to pee on their own without being shadowed. At least until they showed their true colors or proved themselves loyal.

  “Prior, Colonel. I know a lot of things about how to organize a successful fighting machine. But I am only here if the cause is justifiable. If you’re here to overthrow the U.S. government or to hire your services out to foreign campaigns, I’m out of here. I have no desire to be with traitors or, for that matter, mercenaries.” Moirane sneered.

  “Hold on, Mr. Moirane. Simmer down a bit. We are not here to take down the U.S. government, in fact, that would be the direct opposite of our intentions. We are not here as mercenaries. We are not up here playing paintball. We have one reason and one reason only to be up here.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Defense.”

  “Defense from what, Colonel? Radical Muslim fundamentalists?”

  “Moirane, I don’t know how much you’re trying to hide from me, but I’ve got a fair idea you know what’s going on in the real world. Call me crazy if you want, you wouldn’t be the first, but I started this fighting unit for defense of our planet. My best friend on this woe-begotten world was dematerialized in front of hundreds of amazed and horrified witnesses. Now granted, the vast majority of these people were on mind-altering substances of one sort or another. But when the government pulled out the old mass hallucination card, I knew something was fishy right from the get-go. I’ve got ten or twelve of them I could round up for you in three minutes who will swear on their lives they witnessed a huge ship take nine thousand or so people right out of Red Rocks. We have heard rumors of the same thing happening in Russia and China but those governments clammed up even more so than our own. We also have visual confirmation of a huge ship in orbit around Venus.” Moirane’s face fell, outside of the military, he had no idea anybody else knew about that ship.

  “Ah, I can tell from your face you know something about this ship.”

  “I’ve heard rumors,” Moirane lied.

  “We have an amateur astronomer in Maine, a good friend of mine who just happened to be checking out weather patterns on Venus when right before his eyes a huge ship roughly the size of his home state materialized and then just as suddenly dematerialized. Now my friend also likes to partake of the funny left-handed cigarettes on occasion, so I was prone to believe he had witnessed one mother of a high. But lucky for him and for us, I guess, he always videotapes his sky watches, as he calls them. So there he was cleaning up that videotape for two days before he had the gumption to call me with it. He sent me a copy before he called the U.S. government, who by the way summarily confiscated that tape and all of his sky watching apparatus.”

  “You still have that copy?”

  “Oh that copy and a hundred just like it scattered across the country for safe keeping.”

  “What’s to say this ‘ship’ isn’t some sort of anomaly on the master tape?”

  “Well, y
ou see my friend began to have those same doubts. It’s kind of hard to swallow a huge alien ship parked at your doorstep. So before he made the fateful call to the powers that be, he studied the planet’s atmosphere with a little more scrutiny. You see apparently, when something that big orbits around a planet it tends to have minute gravitational effects.”

  “Which he recorded.”

  “Right you are.”

  “And you have a hundred or so of those tapes scattered across the country.”

  “Again correct.”

  “But that still doesn’t explain your whole military campaign here.”

  “Well, you see Mr. Moirane, I do not believe these aliens have come to our fine planet on the up and up. If they had come in peace as we so often see in the movies, I don’t believe they would have come and scooped up thousands of our people. My theory, and trust me I have doubted myself far too often, my theory is they are studying those people. I am fairly certain those unlucky souls, my best friend included, are being subjected to the cruelest form of inhumanity. And therein lies the bulk of our problem, how could an alien civilization be deemed inhuman? They are by their very nature inhuman. They are alien. I am not one hundred percent sure they have come to annihilate us, just yet. But, Mr. Moirane, if they have come to do just that, we will fight back.”

  And beyond his better judgment Moirane began to like this renegade. “Then why not tell the whole world what you know? Show those tapes.”

  “Moirane, I’ve watched those tapes over two hundred times each and I still don’t believe what I saw. And you know as well as I do, John Q. Public is not ready for this type of information. The average Joe is concerned with the mortgage and who the Bears are playing on Sunday. I have no desire to start riots in the street. The government knows what’s going on, they have their hands full. I do not intend to throw any fire on that flame. But I also am not waiting idly by for them to get their act together. It’s not like they know what to do, either. This isn’t standard operating procedure these days. I had fully hoped they would have called back all of our troops, but I guess they don’t want to destabilize world power at this crucial time, either. So there it is, my friend. We are a new style military force for these times. We do an unbelievable amount of conditioning and combat training—we’re getting prepared. So we put the word out there very subtly, people know something’s going on, they’re just not too sure what it is. If they come up here and they want to stick around then we let them. But it’s not a free ride; everyone up here becomes part of the fighting force. If and when the war starts, Mr. Moirane, this just might be the safest place to be in North America. If those aliens come down to start something they are going to hit military targets first. This place won’t even be on their map. And once we get a glimpse of them then we can go into action ourselves.”

  “I’m impressed, Colonel. I really thought I was going to come up here and run into a little Hitler wannabe. But you really seem to have your gear stowed away up here. If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to stay awhile.”

  “How does the rank of Captain sound, Mr. Moirane?”

  “That’ll do just fine, thank you.”

  “Great, then if you can just give me a few minutes Captain, I need to get a few things out of the way and I’ll introduce you to the rest of the officers.”

  “Yes sir, Colonel, very well.”

  “Dismissed, Captain.” And with that Captain Moirane did an about face and left the command tent.

  CHAPTER 42 – Journal Entry 27

  Orbiting Venus

  Durgan was next, there was no possible way to avoid that fact. His time, or more likely, my time had come. I’d rather take on one of the guards than Durgan. Sure, they were bigger. But pound-for-pound Durgan was meaner. He was hopped up on some sort of go-go juice from the Progerians. Apparently, he had big drakka backing his move for champion. If the aliens pulled another stunt like last time, having no weapons in the arena, even I would have bet on Durgan winning. The women tried their best to be uplifting and consoling. They even tried an intervention. It was a couple of weeks before the match and they tried to coax me out of my room. Which, by the way, I hadn’t left in the previous two weeks. I saw no reason to leave now, I knew my ranking and I knew Durgan’s ranking. I knew his style, raving mad lunatic. What more was there? All of my exercise equipment was in my room and food came whether I ate it or not. I had no desire to be amongst the living when I felt so dead. Deb tried her best but I wasn’t having any of it. I’m certain she was the one who arranged the ‘intervention’. What a pile of you-know-what that was. All the women came into my room with candles. I had no desire to get all touchy feely and find my inner femininity. If anything, I was attempting to go even further down the other path and I let them know in no uncertain terms who the boss was around here. Now I knew this wouldn’t have flown at home, but alas, this wasn’t Earth and therefore I wasn’t bound to those rules. I kicked each and every one of them out, including Deb, and I told them if they weren’t bringing food or water into my room then they had absolutely no place there.

  I had really expected some sort of rebel uprising, but not a one of them even so much as whispered some disparaging remark. I’m sure they waited until I was well out of earshot before they attempted anything along those lines. No sense in angering the unchained lion. Even Frertek had come, I suppose in some alien way to say his goodbyes. The odds of my winning the next bout were at best one hundred to one. If this were pro football I would have been spotted twenty-eight points. Frertek had become more than a little peeved when I had not taken up his invitation to lunch. He had even gone so far as to strike Stephanie when she had blocked his path to my room. For me to interfere would have been fatal for us all, I didn’t think a bruised cheek was worth all our lives. So when he had slammed open my bedroom door, I was in the semi-catatonic state I had adopted since the end of my last bout. He stared at me for what seemed like minutes, ranting away, and it was at this time I wished I had known some Progerian speech because I would have sworn he was swearing. Maybe he bet his next paycheck on me and now saw no way to recoup his losses. Because I truly looked insane and the funny part was not even I was sure whether or not I had crossed that line. It’s a scary time in one’s life to look inward and find a completely different person looking back. Frertek stopped by one more time about three days before the big dance. Stephanie did not, however, place herself in harm’s way this time. He sauntered into my bedroom like he owned the place, which I guess he did in some fashion, and it was clear to him I had not stirred an inch. Even the spittle on my chin was meticulously placed to look as if I hadn’t even the desire to clean myself off.

  And there it was. It definitely sounded like a long string of alien profanities. Had he stood there any longer I might have started laughing. The true problem would have been that I most likely wouldn’t have been able to stop. Would Durgan get the same enjoyment out of killing me if I was laughing like a raving madman? Probably. I don’t think he’d care if I was cradling kittens in my arms—a kill was a kill. I called Deb and Steph into my room the night before the bout and I pretty much laid everything on the line. They were all ears. Although I believe some small, dark, well-hidden place deep inside Deb hoped for my demise. If I lived, she would lose. But the good part of her outwardly rooted for me. Stephanie was more the pragmatist, she saw the inherent dangers and risks of my plan, but the rewards far outweighed the negatives. This was the rock and the hard place, it was our turn now. We would take hold of that rock and throw it at the hard place and see what happened. Nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of one thousand that rock would merely bounce off, but maybe, just maybe in this instance we would be able to crack either the rock, the hard place, or more unlikely but much more desirable, both of them.

  CHAPTER 43

  Closing in on Venus.

  “USS Liberation, this is Ground Control. USS Liberation, this is Ground Control—do you copy?”

  “We copy loud and clear, Ground Con
trol. Nice to have you back, Major Hatfield,” the colonel said with true delight in his heart.

  “Oh you know me, Colonel, I just can’t stay away too long,” the major said and the funny part was he couldn’t stand to be away from his post for too long. He had over six months of leave time built up and had been promising his wife for ten years they would go on vacation, but every time he got close to it, he would get cold feet and back out. The military was his life and these men and women around him were also his family. He would lay down his life for any of them, as he knew they would for him. He was so concerned the one time he left would be the one time they needed him the most. So for ten years he had placated his wife with three-day weekends and the occasional ninety-sixer That’s four days to you non-military types. A Friday and a Monday wrapped around a weekend.

  “How are the wife and kids, Butch? Do they still like piggyback rides?” Butch knew the code well enough; piggyback meant was anyone listening in on the transmission.

  “Well, you know, Colonel, the entire country likes piggybacks and especially our new friends. It seems they’ve always liked piggybacks. Emphasis on always, Colonel.”