Chapter 27

So close now.

I lay on my belly in the undergrowth, half a klick from the isolated house where Tesla hid. I watched the building through my helmet visor, zooming in on the perimeter, a low fence. Two guards, infantrymen, patrolled the area. I knew they'd be bored to death and careless.

Darkness began to fall. It came fast on this world. You could blink and miss the twilight. I prepared myself for the mission, stashing my pack and coat. Not quite dark enough to move yet, so I waited, sitting on the ground, cross-legged and with eyes closed. Meditating, the way I'd seen Esha and Akil doing it, preparing myself. I breathed slowly. My mind drifted in grey mist.

Soon it would be over. He'd be dead. I knew killing Tesla wouldn't end my pain. It would give me a sense of... satisfaction perhaps? But I wouldn't feel better. That didn't matter. This was for them, not for me. They deserved vengeance and who else would do it? And if I didn't avenge my friends how could I call myself a man? What honour could I claim to have, if he lived while they grew cold in the ground?

I suddenly thought that I'd never found out what happened to their bodies. They'd probably been cremated, their ashes blown away on the soft Chia breezes. Well at least it had been somewhere beautiful, somewhere that looked a little like home. Their faces came to me one after another. Some of them I lingered on longer than the others. Jia laughing at the butterflies as they swarmed around us. Ilyan hiking happily in the sunshine, a blade of grass in his teeth, forgetting for a while about the burden of destiny that awaited him. That would have awaited him, if not for…

I opened my eyes. My face was wet. I scrubbed my sleeve across it, drying the tears. Full darkness now. Time. I flipped down my visor and engaged night vision. The scene became clear as day. But I knew the men I had to get past had the same advantage.

I approached the house, moving silently. Lights showed inside now. I could use that. One of the guards stopped at the front gate, adjusting his rifle. I stayed concealed in bushes across the road from him and found a stone on the ground. When he looked away from my general direction, I wound up and tossed the stone. It landed over the fence, between the guard and the house. He turned in that direction at once, bringing up his rifle. I saw his hand go up to his helmet and I knew he'd just engaged heat-seeking mode.

While he had his back to me, I moved towards him, fast, willing myself invisible. He started to turn back, his hand once again at his helmet. I knew I had a half a second, barely that, as his visor switched back from heat seeking to night vision. I sprang, in that half second of blindness, and we fell down in a tangle of limbs. I thrust my knife in under his armpit, in the gap between plates of body armour, through his ribs, into his heart.

I hated to do it. Poor bastard had just been doing his job. I made a silent apology. Sorry pal. Between me and the target. No option. He died without a sound and I twisted the knife a quarter turn and slid it out.

Number four.

Fourth human I ever killed. The two assassins, the one I shot the day -- the day the world ended. I shook myself. No time now for that sort of thinking, had to stay focused. I heaved the body over the low wall, letting it fall into the cover of some bushes.

The second guard came around the side of the house to see an infantryman standing there. Me of course, but he had no reason to think it wasn't his buddy. I tapped my helmet in the "broken comms" signal and he at once came towards me.

I shot him with my pistol at two meters away. Couldn't miss. Pulse beam. Silent.

Number five and another silent apology.

After I concealed his body with the other, I looked up at the house. No sign that anyone inside had heard anything amiss. I walked up to the door, my visor still down. Tesla would look before he answered the door. I knew that for sure.

I wondered how paranoid he might have become. Did he sleep restlessly, worrying about me coming for him? Had anyone warned him I'd escaped? Did anyone know I'd escaped?

I knocked and waited. After a few seconds, I heard movement inside. He'd be checking through the camera I saw mounted in the door. I did the broken comms tap again and after a second, the door opened.

Tesla.

The little bastard wore expensive silk clothes. The hand he rested on the door had immaculately manicured nails.

"What do you want?" He asked, sounding irritated, then scared. "Is there trouble?"

I barged the door suddenly with my shoulder. Yeah, there's trouble all right, you fucking weasel, you wasp, you... No! Stay in control. I slammed the door shut behind me.

Tesla staggered back and lost his footing, his bare feet tangling with each other. He fell down to sprawl on the thick pile carpet.

"How dare you? What do you want?"

I slung the rifle over my shoulder on its strap and bent forward to take off my helmet, before straightening up, shaking out my hair, which did need cut. I gave him a twisted smirk.

"Hello, Tesla."

He screamed. A full on scream like the one he'd let out during the shelling back on Kitsnujitar. Perhaps he found me even scarier that that shelling. He had to know I was going to kill him.

"No! No!" He scrambled away as I walked towards him. I didn't try to catch him yet, I could do that any time. Right now, I just enjoyed walking after him slowly as he tried to back away from me. He screamed for the guards a couple of times. That didn't do him any good of course. He crawled into a large, well-appointed living room

and turned pleading, terrified eyes up to me.

"Please, Jadeth, please! I'm sorry! I didn't know they were going to kill everyone I swear!"

"Liar."

"I swear, I thought they would just capture them and --"

"Tell that to Rish. Oh, you can't can you? You stuck a knife in his belly and left him to bleed to death."

"He wouldn't go away!" Tears streamed down Tesla's face now and he had pissed himself. I kept on walking, following him around as he backed away on the floor, wailing. "I asked him to leave me alone and he wouldn't go!"

"So you killed him."

"I had to!"

"And now I have to kill you."

He scrambled again, crawled fast behind a sofa, and crammed himself into a corner. I stopped in front of him.

"No, Jadeth, please!" A note of desperate hope came into his voice. "I can give you money! They gave me a lot of money. You can have all of it. And this house. Everything! Please don't kill me."

I took out my knife and let it glint in the light. He moaned with horror at the sight of it.

"You are offering me money?" My voice was terrifyingly calm in the face of this final insult. "You actually think money will stop me wanting to avenge them?"

"Jadeth, please," he sobbed. "I swear to you I didn't know they would kill everyone."

"Why, Tesla?" I asked, quietly. "Why betray Ilyan? The rest of us you didn't give a fuck about, fair enough. But Ilyan was your friend. So why?"

"I couldn't take it any more!" He yelled, suddenly almost angry, perhaps seeing he had nothing to lose now. "He should have taken power. Made things happen the way he wanted. Not hiked around the wilderness preaching to grunts!" He looked scared again. "I mean soldiers. No offence."

"None taken." I said, wanted to laugh at the insanity of it that he feared offending me with a word, when I had come here to cut out his heart. "And of course, if he'd taken power you'd have been right there by his side. Right there to pick up some more of that reflected glory. Like you had for the last ten years, right?"

"It's not like that." He shook his head vehemently. "He got it wrong, that's all. And I had to do something. I had to stop him. Don't you see? His preaching made the prophecy more likely to come true! Gave the aliens ideas. And now it's happening! It's happening, Jadeth!"

"And because of you he's not here to stop it."

Ready now. Enough chitchat. I'd had all kinds of plans to make it slow and painful. Plans to torture him using anything I could find around the house. Now I just wanted it over. I wanted him to be dead. I needed him to be dead, because every second he lived mocked their memory.

I took out my pistol and walked closer to him. He sobbed pathetically now, grabbed at my boot, grovelled, begged.

"Please no, Jadeth. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please."

I couldn't stand that. I felt no pity in my heart, only disgust. I thought of the moment. That moment. I remembered Vimal dying because he put his own body between Ilyan and the guns. I remembered Jia trying to protect Ilyan the same way and him pushing her away to try to save her from dying the same way. I thought of Maiga ordering me to leave her to her fate and protect Ilyan.

Heroes. Heroic deaths. The whimpering of the creature that had killed them sickened me. I could have gut shot him with a bullet and watched him die slow. But I needed it to end, needed his voice to stop.

I switched the pistol to pulse burst. I pressed it to his sweating temple. I pulled the trigger.

Number six.

Everything went a bit grey and strange for a while then. My ears buzzed and I had to sit down. I staggered over to an armchair and flopped into it, head spinning. A second later, I felt a tingle in my jaw, leaned over the arm of the chair and threw up. Didn't have much to throw up. I'd not eaten properly for days, lived on water and coffee and ration bars. After that was over, I fell back in the chair, trembling and sweating.

I don't know why I reacted like that. Maybe just relief that I'd got it done, dealt with him. I touched my face to find it wet again, with blood and tears. My mouth tasted vile. I wanted to go and clean up, but I couldn't stand up yet, I needed to wait till the room stopped spinning.

Eventually I managed to stand and I took a couple of deep breaths. Now I had to start thinking straight again. I needed to search the house, see if I could find anything useful. Valuable if possible, to sell for ready cash.

First I went into the kitchen and cleaned my hands and face in the sink. I drank three glasses of water in quick succession, washing the taste of bile out of my mouth. After that I made a cup of tea. A good strong brew always put a man back on his feet.

I wandered around the house, sipping the mug of scalding hot tea. Not really searching yet, just exploring. Checking out the luxury that Tesla had sold our lives for.

In the hall, I found a locked door. Naturally, I wanted to get that open. A blank panel was inset into the wall to the right of it. The panel had a button beside it, just begging to be pushed. I pushed it. Never been able to resist pushing buttons. The panel slid back revealing a screen and more buttons, these ones labelled. One was labelled 'on' so of course I pushed that.

As I expected the screen came to life and showed a room, from a high angle, like a camera in the ceiling. Quite a nice room, carpeted and furnished, lit with soft lighting. And occupied. A woman sat on an armchair, her chin on her hand, her other hand holding a book in her lap. I could only see her from the side and she had long reddish brown hair that covered the side of her face.

I glanced at the door beside the panel. The room must be behind that door, I supposed. I looked at the monitor screen again, at the room. I'd thought at first that it looked like a nice room, comfortable. Quite large, divided roughly into a sleeping area and a living area. But looking again I saw it had no windows. And of course it lay beyond a locked door. I'd called it a room, but another word would fit better. Cell.

Tesla had a woman in a cell.

I found the screen responded to touch and allowed me to move the camera and to zoom. I zoomed in on the woman. Perhaps the camera movement made a noise, because she looked up from her book and glared straight into the camera. I gasped and stepped back, dropping my mug of tea.

Maiga.

I'd heard her scream. I'd heard shots. I'd heard the scream cut off. I'd been certain she'd died. But there she sat, glowering, she thought, at Tesla.

She'd been part of his price. He wanted her and he couldn't have her. He didn't betray us for money, or because he'd decided Ilyan had got it wrong, or even because he'd just grown sick of hiking around alien planets. He sold us out so he could have Ilyan's woman.

I recovered my wits and looked at the buttons on the panel. The label on one read: 'gas'. I didn't press that. I guessed what it did. Tesla couldn't overpower Maiga, a trained marine, and that glare suggested she didn't relish his company. He must gas her unconscious, and then go in and... I zoomed in on the large bed to see manacles attached to the headboard and footboard. I thought for a moment that I would throw up again.

For the first time I regretted killing him quick. I should have made him suffer. I should have peeled his skin off one layer at a time with a blunt knife. I should have castrated the bastard. Or I should have kept him alive for her to do it.

I looked again at the buttons and found one labelled "unlock". When I pressed that I heard the sound of bolts slamming back. I pulled the handle and had the door about half open when the handle was snatched out of my hand. Maiga hit me like a missile, slamming me back against the opposite wall. I hit the floor moaning and she landed on top of me, straddled my chest, one hand raised, and a fist clenched, ready to pound down into my face.

Nice going, Jadeth, I chided myself. You thought that one through - not. I should have known she'd be waiting for any chance of escape.

"Jadeth?" She gasped, sounding amazed, staring down at me, her hand still raised, frozen.

"Yeah," I gasped, winded. "Get the hell off me!"

She did, jumped up lightly to her bare feet, and offered me a hand up.

"But... but he told me you were all dead. He told me... Jadeth, the others? Ilyan?"

I felt like a monster when I had to dash the desperate hope I saw dawn on her face. I shook my head.

"I'm sorry, Maiga, he's dead. They're all dead."

The hope drained away, leaving her pale and suddenly fragile looking. Then she frowned, fierce again.

"Why are you alive?" She demanded, making it sound like an accusation.

"They kept me alive, wanted me to denounce Ilyan. I escaped."

"And came to rescue me?" She stared at me again.

"No. Sorry, I thought you were dead too. I came after Tesla." She winced at the sound of his name, and her face twisted briefly with disgust. Tesla hadn't bothered to mention her before I shot him. If I hadn't found her, if I'd left the house, she'd have died of starvation locked in her cosy cell.

"Where is he?" She asked quietly, probably already guessed the answer.

"Dead."

She nodded, gave a small satisfied smile.

"Thank you, Jadeth."

"You're welcome."

We stood in silence for a moment. Difficult to think of small talk at this moment. What the hell would we say?

No, I figured she wouldn't really want to talk about that with me.

Eventually she spoke.

"You look terrible."

I rubbed my hand across my eyes. "Not slept much for a while. You look, well, great actually. Though kind of pale." She wore a tiny skimpy dress that I guessed Tesla had picked out for her. Her hair cascaded thickly down over her shoulders, nearly all the way down her back. "How'd your hair get so long?"

"Implants," she said, with that look of disgust again. "He prefers... Preferred it this way."

"Oh," I said. Silence again.

"So," she said after a while. "I guess you know the prophecy is coming true?"

"Yeah. I've seen the recall order."

"We should go home," she said. "Go back to Earth, do what we can. It's what Ilyan would have wanted."

"Right now it's what High Command want."

High Command, the ones who had him killed. Tesla betrayed us, but High Command betrayed the whole damn planet. Go home? Help them? Not in a million...

I stopped and looked at Maiga for a long time. A tech. Smart as a whip. Get her on the intelligence networks and she can find any information you wanted.

"Yes," I said. "Home. You're right. It's time to go home."

~/~/~

I woke up nearly seven hours later, blinking at Maiga as she shook my shoulder. I'd slept heavily and if I'd dreamt I had no memory of it.

"Wake up, Jadeth. We need to get out of here before the relief guard shows up."

"Oh, yeah." I rubbed my eyes and glanced at the window to see it was still dark outside. I had slept on Tesla's bed, without bothering to take my boots off. Maiga hurried out of the room and after a moment I followed her, into the kitchen, where she dished up food onto a plate.

"Eat up, quick."

I sat and ate mechanically as she buzzed around. She'd put on some clothes that I suppose were Tesla's, a loose shirt and pants.

"I've got the information," she said, as she tossed an empty pan carelessly into the sink. A crash told me it had broken a plate already lying in there. "All we need to get inside High Command."

We. Yeah, I was going to have to tell her about that. I stopped with my fork part way to my mouth and stared as she took a big pair of scissors out of a drawer, walked over to a mirror on the wall and snipped off a big chunk of her long hair. It fell to scatter on the floor.

"I've also transferred all of Tesla's money into accounts where we can get at it." She grimaced. "Much as I hate to touch the blood money, but..." she shrugged and cut off another strand of hair.

Just implants, I reminded myself. And the way he liked it. I went on eating and poured some coffee. Maybe I'd wait till she put the scissors down before I explained about there not being a "we".

"Jadeth," she said, still cutting her hair and staring intently into the mirror. "Why did you leave him alone that night?"

I almost dropped my cup. Coffee sloshed onto the table.

"You mean Ilyan?"

"You know what I mean." She turned to look at me, the last long strand of hair still in her hand. I couldn't tell if she just wanted to know or if she wanted to accuse me, blame me. Well, hell, what did it matter now? I might as well tell her.

"I was looking for you and him. Tesla. I thought you were," I looked away, ashamed. "You know, together."

I really should have waited until she put the scissors down. I waited for the explosion, but it didn't come. After a while, I looked up at her. She looked thoughtful, as opposed to murderous.

"I guess that's my own fault," she said quietly.

I stared. Was she admitting that she and Tesla actually were...

"Oh take that look off your face, you idiot," she snapped. "I just mean I should have put him off more forcefully." She dropped the last of her fake hair onto the floor. "You bloody men. Some of you just don't get the message." She grabbed my empty plate and tossed it at the sink, where it hit the taps and smashed. "If we run you over with a tank you just think we're playing hard to get."

"Hey, I always took a hint," I protested, thinking of Jia.

"Well, he didn't." She scowled in the direction of the living room and folded her arms. "I just didn't want to make a fuss, about it. I didn't want to have to tell Ilyan his best friend was coming on to me. If I'd been more --"

"No," I stood up, interrupted her. "It wouldn't have made a difference. Tesla did this. It's his fault, not yours."

She looked at me, her arms still folded. After a moment, she nodded.

"Or yours."

I smiled at her, nodded too and felt grateful to her as we finally forgave each other.

Time kept marching on and we needed to do the same. After I'd finished eating, we gathered up our kit and took off, before the day guard showed up. Tesla had a car, so we swiped that and headed for the spaceport. I drove, but I stopped a couple of kilometres short of the port and turned to Maiga.

"This is where I say goodbye."

"What?" She looked at me baffled.

"You can take the car and the money. I don't need it. Your best idea is to head for Hollow Jimmy. It's safe there. For now anyway." She tried to speak, but I rolled right on over her protest. "If you happen to run into a Sylebine called Ik, say hi from me. He's in the market for a bodyguard if you fancy the job."

I got out of the car. Maiga of course jumped out of the other side and stared wildly at me as I shouldered my pack.

"What the hell are you talking about?" She demanded. "This is my fight too! They were my friends. Ilyan was my man."

"I know. But I'm sorry, Captain, I'm going back to Earth alone."

"And how do you think you can stop me going back too?"

"I can't. But, Maiga." I looked at the ground a moment, and then looked up. "Ilyan would have wanted you to live and if you come with me, you will die." I adjusted the strap of my helmet and settled my rifle in my arms. "Just live, Maiga. For all of them."

That shut her up, made her bite her lip and think a bit. I figured that while just one of us lived High Command hadn't won.

"Thanks for getting me the info," I said, holding up my Snapper before tucking it into my pocket. I walked around to the front of the car and she came around to meet me. She held out her hand to me and I took it. She held on to it after the shake.

"Sergeant, you are..." She shook her head, giving a wry smile. "Well, frankly, one of the most annoying people I ever met."

"You're a real pain in the arse too, Captain," I said, grinning at her.

She looked at me searchingly, as if trying to work out what I might be thinking. If she figured that out, she'd probably shoot me.

"Goodbye, Maiga. Good luck." I let go of her hand and saluted her.

She returned the salute, her face serious.

"And to you, Jadeth. Goodbye."

I turned and walked away, heading for the spaceport. After a few minutes, the car drove past me and I waved as it vanished from sight. I hoped she had the sense to do as I said and head for Hollow Jimmy or some other safe place. If any place could be called safe now for humans. Strange to think that Earth was now the most dangerous place of all for humans. At least it would be soon.

When I arrived.

~/~/~

The spaceport heaved with soldiers, waiting to board shuttles. A vast troop ship hung in orbit, ready to take them all home. The shuttles ran continuously, slowly thinning out the crowd.

I chose one of the fake IDs and found the most harried looking of the sergeants organising grunts onto the transports. As he checked my ID details, I spun him a line about why I was floating around unattached.

"Got separated from your unit, huh, private?" He asked suspiciously.

"Well, Sarge, if you want the truth, I've been AWOL," I said. He frowned, his deeply tanned face folding into an expression it apparently adopted a lot.

"Deserter, eh?"

"No, sarge!" My protest sounded heartfelt. "I just sort of took an extended leave. See there was this girl and well, you know how it is."

"I should slap you into the brig." He growled, and then shrugged. "But what the fuck do I care? We need every man. Get your arse on board, soldier."

You human? Welcome aboard.

"Thanks, sarge."

"Piss off. Next!"

~/~/~

On the troop ship, the blanket stackers allocated me a bunk and I settled in as the ship got underway. The sergeants in charge of the tightly crammed bunkrooms carried out inspections, but I soon twigged they'd give us some leeway because of the overcrowding.

The journey home would take two weeks at least they told us, and I had no doubt the engineers would be pushing the ship flat out. No point in worrying about what happened to the engines afterwards, if sparing them meant there'd be no afterwards.

I divided my time between exercise, playing cards and studying the information Maiga had obtained for me. Apart from cards I didn't socialise too much, I just played the quiet loner. Not too extreme, didn't want to draw attention that way. I just put people off by being unresponsive to attempts at chitchat.

~/~/~

I had an all-new recurring dream to entertain me at nights now. Bright, vivid images of Tesla and me. Of zapping Tesla with one of the prods Imtiaz's men had used on me, jamming it into his belly, as he thrashed screaming. Me laughing, loving his pain, feeding on it.

I woke up with a hard on and felt sick at the obscene pleasure I'd taken in the dream. That's what I'd wanted to do to him, but I'd lost the nerve to do it and just finished him quick instead. But I knew part of me had wanted to make him scream for hours. His pleas, begging me not to kill him echoed in my head. Every night now, I killed him again and woke up hard.

As the images and sensations faded I looked around the dimly lit room, at the bunks occupied by grunts and Marines. A few men lay awake, reading Snappers, or fidgeting around under the covers. Yeah. I just let mine go down. I wasn't going to start jerking off to the memory of Tesla wailing, "Please, Jadeth, please." Snores, sighs and muttering came from the sleeping men. I closed my eyes, wishing for the oblivion of dreamless sleep.

I almost got my wish for oblivion.

The ship juddered. A massive clanging echoed through the room and then a horrible jerk to port, hard, sent men rolling from their bunks. Alarms started to scream, men started to yell.

I recognised the alarm. Battle stations. We were under attack.

Everyone started scrambling into clothes and boots and reaching for their guns. We had two possible roles in this situation, fire fighting or repelling boarders. I got into my pants and boots had started pulling on a shirt when the ship jerked again, throwing me to the deck. Moans and more yelling from the men. A sergeant ran into the room.

"Stay calm, lads. We're having a little Oki trouble is all. Stay here. Get dressed and stand ready for orders."

I finished pulling on the shirt and decided to stay down on the floor, rather than risk being thrown down again and possibly hurt. I hung onto my bunk as more juddering shook the ship.

The longer the fight went on the angrier I became. I couldn't be having this. I couldn't die before I'd had my chance to get at High Command. At the bastards who gave the order, signed the death warrants. I didn't need names. All of them had the blood on their hands, drowning in blood. All guilty.

Until after I'd found and executed Tesla, I'd not thought about what I wanted to do next. I had no headspace for it. But now I knew what I had to do, needed to do. Now I could take the next step. The last step.

The Prophecy had come true. Nothing could stop it now. High Command had to acknowledge their part in that. Had to admit their guilt and negligence. Ilyan had been right and they had to admit that before the end.

Now if only those hairy Oki bastards would stop trying to blow my arse out of the sky.

Home.

Grunts, jarheads, officers and even serious brass all jostled on the troop ship's observation deck for a glimpse of Earth as we manoeuvred into orbit. We'd made it, despite the attempts to stop us, and now joined the huge fleet of warships surrounding the planet.

Most of the ships were positioned inside the orbit of the network of weapons platforms that defended Earth. The cannons mounted on the platforms could slice through the hulls of even shielded ships. They were the most important part of our planetary defence, not the warships.

Humans didn't fight in space very much. It's not our specialty. Our warships mostly carried troops around and deployed them on the ground. The ground is our speciality. When the situation called for someone to get their feet on the ground and blood on their hands they called us. Earth's real weapons were its people.

We disembarked onto shuttles and flew to the surface and into near chaos. We might all be from Earth but most of us lived off world most of the time. Most people left Earth when they turned sixteen and went into active service. Some never returned, even if they lived to run their full service, not for leave, not for retirement. The planet couldn't deal with so many of us coming home at once. From the shuttle, I'd seen campsites larger than cities spread across the landscape.

I looked up into the sky when I set foot back on Earth for the first time in almost six years. This sky was not empty. Ships in low orbit were visible from the ground. Atmosphere based craft passed overhead constantly. And the colour? Grey not blue. I looked away again. Not my sky. Never be my sky again.

I easily slipped away from the squad I'd landed with. Taking out my Snapper, I pulled up a fake ID and some fake orders Maiga had created. Then I strode around, looking arrogant as all get out until I spotted a young lieutenant standing by a small atmosphere shuttle. I marched up to him.

"I'm commandeering this vehicle," I snapped. "You the pilot?"

"Yes, I'm... what? Who the hell are you?"

"Major Kiran, Military Intelligence." I showed him the ID. "I'm under orders from my General to get to High Command ASAP."

He saluted me, which almost made me laugh out loud. An L.T. saluting a sergeant, gotta like that.

"But, sir, this shuttle is for Colonel..."

"I said ASAP, Lieutenant. Now move it." I barked. "I have vital intelligence for High Command."

I hustled him reluctantly onto the shuttle and in a moment we lifted off. I smiled to think of a Colonel raging around looking for his ride. I stretched out in a seat and took out the Snapper. A last minute review of the plans couldn't hurt. Neither could some coffee, which I got from a dispenser on the wall. The pilot kept giving me odd looks and I determined that although the journey would take several hours that I'd stay awake and keep my beady eye on him. Just in case he started doing some checking about his passenger.

I couldn't risk being stopped now. That could not happen. Fate had brought me here. I had to finish the job.

~/~/~

You'd imagine High Command would be a huge, impressive building, but you'd be wrong. In fact, most of it lay underground, deep in the rock and safe from almost any kind of attack. Above ground the only part visible was a low building, an entranceway. Landing pads and some barracks buildings stood nearby. The only impressive part about the site was the vast field of communications antenna that gathered the information High Command fed on like a baby on milk.

My pilot dropped me off at one of the landing pads and started trying to sweet talk a field controller into getting him a fast refuel. I headed straight for the entranceway building. I'd been following the coded network chatter on my Snapper and knew time had started running out very fast now. Even the in-the-clear broadcasts over the shuttle radio were full of it. They're coming. In less than a day, in less than half a day, the alien fleet would surround Earth. They'd already smashed their way past anything we'd thrown at them.

If we'd had time to prepare, we could have upgraded our ships and planetary defences. We could have held them at least long enough to open negotiations. But High Command had ignored the warning. They had refused to believe Ilyan and now the Earth would pay.

I got past security using the fake ID. Too lax. I should have been properly identified, fingerprints, DNA scan. But the sense of panic buzzing in the air made people careless, made them waive procedure. Suited me.

I ignored the huge, busy elevators. I didn't want to be trapped into a metal box waiting for someone to put a hand on my shoulder and say, "aren't you...?" That wouldn't end well for anybody.

I took the stairs and set off to walk. You'd think they'd be deserted, but no. People still used the stairs to go between nearby levels, avoiding the busy elevators. Nobody glancing at me could know I wasn't just going a couple of levels like the rest, but all the way from the surface to the bottom, almost two kilometres straight down. Cameras monitored the stairwells of course, but I'd just have to take the chance that nobody's eyes followed me all the way down.

They called this facility High Command, but High Command really meant the twelve men and women, General officers, who ran the army, and ruled the Earth and its twenty billion sons and daughters. Its twenty billion soldiers. I'd find High Command themselves right at the lowest level. The safest from attack.

We'd learnt in school that the lowest level was a self-contained facility where people could live and work for a long time, years even. Offices, quarters, ward rooms, kitchens, mess hall, infirmaries. Everything. And they all surround the heart of the facility. The heart of High Command.

The War Room.

An old-fashioned term, almost romantic. I'd seen pictures and holo-projections of it and recreations of it in movies. Again, less impressive than you'd imagine. Just a meeting room really. A big table and many, many display screens to show the generals the information they needed to make their decisions. I guessed the screens now showed images and projections of the alien fleet closing on Earth.

My fake ID wouldn't cut it down on the lowest floor. They took security seriously down there. If I strolled up and flashed my Major Kiran ID at them, I'd be strapped down and subject to some very embarrassing body searches within two minutes. They supposedly had scanners that could identify your DNA fingerprint just from the dead skin you shed as you walked through.

I stopped ten floors up from the bottom instead and left the stairwell to go onto the floor. A comms centre and frantically busy. I got a few odd looks with my big coat and pack, but no one had time to question me. Following the directions in my snapper, I found a storeroom.

Typical storage area, supplies, spare equipment, junk waiting for disposal, stuff that nobody knew where else to put just now. It also had a nice alcove set into the wall where I could conceal myself while I prepared.

My eyelids felt heavy now. I hadn't slept for over twenty-four hours and the long walk down the stairs had left me almost dizzy with exhaustion. However, no point in worrying about that now. I popped a stimulant pill and felt better.

I shed my coat and shirt and changed into a light, close fitting sleeveless shirt. The Snapper, which I still needed, went into a pocket, along with a scrambler, to deal with any nosey cameras and scanners I ran into. My knife I strapped to my arm. I checked my handgun and holstered it on my belt. Fully loaded and fully charged. I donned a pair of wraparound glasses that, like my helmet visor, gave me night vision and heat seeking modes.

I took one last thing from my pack. A reel of thin cable, with an attachment device on the end of the cable. The reel went on my back like a pack, using the harness attached that strapped securely across my chest. I'd tested it to be certain it would take my weight.

Last of all I retrieved a pair of gloves from the pocket of my coat and pulled them on. They were thin with rubberised grips. I flexed my hands in them.

Ready.

I looked up at the wall and smiled. All underground facilities have one weakness in common. They need ventilation. In a moment, I'd removed the vent cover in the storeroom and climbed into the shaft beyond it.

~/~/~

Well I won't get into detail about my thrilling trip through the vents and maintenance shafts. The Snapper pointed my way. The scrambler took care of any scanners and I hoped everyone had better things to worry than some vent scanners going on the fritz. I crawled through vents and climbed down ladders between floors.

The ladders stopped two floors up from the bottom and that's when I used my reel of cable. I climbed into the central ventilation shaft, a square shaft, which reached right to the surface. I looked up into the two kilometres of nothingness above me, and then I looked away. I attached my cable to a stanchion, checked it would hold, then kicked away from the wall and released the brake on the reel. I dropped, bounced off the wall again with my feet, released the brake again and kept on abseiling down the shaft.

The cable ran out a couple of metres short and I had to slide out of the harness and drop to the bottom of the shaft. I landed light, bending my knees in the rock, dropping into a crouch. When I touched the metal floor, it felt warm under my hands, from the rock underneath. I remembered old stories I'd read about deep mines where the men worked stripped off because of the heat.

The heat helped me. It meant the fans in the AC vents ran fast down here, cooling the rooms carved out of the warm rock, and their constant hum drowned out any noise I made as I commando crawled through the vents, searching for the one I wanted. The one that would lead me to the false ceiling over the War Room.

I found it. The ceiling void was a space no higher than my old steel cage of doom. Pipes and wiring ran across its "floor". I knew I had to be careful only to put my weight on the joists that supported the ceiling panels and not on the lightweight panels themselves, or else I'd go crashing through rather sooner than I wanted to.

I could actually hear voices from the room below as I moved across the ceiling, almost painfully slow. Briefly, I switched my glasses to heat seeking. In the room below me twelve blobs of heat clustered around what I assumed must be the famous War Room table. Heat from equipment in the table radiated too. A couple of other blobs moved around.

There'd be no guards in there, I knew that. Outside, yes, but no-one stood guard in the war room, because only members of High Command were allowed to know what went on in there. The moving around blobs moved out of the room altogether after a moment. Probably serving coffee, I thought, noting some small but very hot blobs on the table. I switched back to night vision and kept moving.

When I moved into position beside a vent panel, I lay flat, spreading my weight. I took the glasses off and looked down through the grill of the vent to confirm my position. Perfect. Right over the war room table, which I saw had a 3D projection running. The Earth in the middle, our ships surrounding it, and just out of range of them and the orbiting weapons platforms: the alien fleet. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of ships. They surrounded the whole planet.

On the edge of the projection, I saw the moon, with its extensive colony and shipyards. It looked as lifeless as it had before men first went there a thousand years ago.

"They're inside lunar orbit." I heard a voice I recognised. General Shandar. I knew him from broadcasts. I knew all of them. "All the lunar bases have ceased responding to hails. The scanning satellites report they are all destroyed."

It had started.

Time for it to end.

I shuffled around and sat on a joist. It creaked a bit and I held my breath, but heard no reaction from below. The general's voice kept burbling on. I peeled off my gloves and put them aside. I took a deep breath.

"For you, Ilyan," I whispered to the darkness. "And all of you."

Then I smashed both feet into the vent panel. It crashed down and I launched myself after it. My feet hit the table and I wobbled briefly, but stayed upright. I pulled my gun in a flash. I'd not dared draw it before I jumped, fearing the landing would jolt it out of my hand.

The generals leapt back out of their seats in shock and horror as an entirely unexpected grunt smashed right into the middle of their game board. The tabletop cracked and the 3D display they'd been studying fizzled out. I kicked the vent cover off the table, scattering coffee cups, papers and Snappers with it.

One man, Dayo, a tall dark skinned Marine edged back towards the table, probably trying to reach a panic button and raise the alarm, but I shot him before he got within a metre. The others jumped and gasped in horror as he fell. A couple of them bent over him, but they couldn't do anything. I'd shot to kill. Shot to impress.

"Lock the room down now!" I ordered, pointing my gun at the one in charge, Chief of Staff Sadra. Quite a short woman, looking almost overwhelmed by the thick crust of insignia and decorations covering her army uniform. She glanced down for a second at Dayo's body and spoke.

"Computer, lockdown, code fifteen z."

Blast shields rolled down across the doors. I knew similar shields would cut off every other access point into the room, including the vents I'd used. The lockdown protocol sealed the room from the outside world. Recyclers and reserves would feed us air.

"Drop your weapons, all of you. Get over to that end of the room. Move it!" The ones kneeling by Dayo glared, but I showed no mercy. "Leave him. Do it now!"

One by one they dropped their guns in a heap and backed off to the far wall, away from their big table where I stood, controlling the room, controlling them. Once all of the guns were piled up, I switched to plasma beam and vaporised them. Now unless anyone had anything concealed, and they'd be dead if they had, then I had the only weapons in the room.

Sadra stepped forward cautiously. I'd always rather admired her. She had an incredible command record and her victories had long been required study for officer training. The same went for most of the people in the room. These people had been my heroes for a long time. Many young soldiers aspired to reach this position. And not only officers dreamt of it. I looked at General Baldev, a giant of a man. He'd not started as an officer, he'd moved up through the ranks. According to legend, he'd once been the strongest man in the army. Now he stared up at me wide-eyed and scared looking and I knew I could take him in a fight and I hated him.

I hated all of them.

"Jadeth," Sadra said. One or two of the others looked surprised.

"Isn't he meant to be dead?" Baldev said.

"We hung onto him for - ah - questioning," another woman said. I knew her. General Dow, commander of military intelligence. She must have given the order to kill Ilyan. I raised my gun.

"Jadeth," Sadra said my name again, in an infuriatingly calm tone. "What exactly is it you want?"

I shot Dow and she fell dead. Some of the others moaned. Sadra didn't even glance back at Dow.

"That's what I want," I said. "From all of you."

"Jadeth, I don't know if you have noticed." Sadra's voice remained calm, almost conversational. "But an alien fleet is about to attack the Earth. We need to give the orders to stop that --"

"It's too late!" I yelled at her. "You could have given the orders a year ago, when he warned you. But you dismissed him He was right and you chose to ignore him."

"Surely Ilyan explained to you the real nature of his so-called prophecies?" She took another small step forward, but I jerked my pistol in warning and she stopped. "He predicted not where war would start but where we could make it start."

"I know that."

"If Ilyan believed this prediction would be any different than the others, would not be self fulfilling like them, then he must have been a fool."

I scowled at her, but it didn't intimidate her, she pressed on.

"The only difference is that this time he's the one who took the actions to make it come true, not us."

"No!" I yelled. Did she really think she could turn me against him now? How dare she? "He did not want it to come true!"

"Then he certainly must have been a fool. He started spreading the idea across the galaxy. Did he really think the Big Four wouldn't hear about it?"

"They were already planning their attack. They'd had secret negotiations --"

"He told you that, did he?"

I stared at her. Why the hell did I suddenly feel on the defensive? How did she have me on the back foot?

"He wouldn't have lied to me," I insisted.

"Of course not," she said, quite gently. She stepped forward again. "Jadeth, I am sorry about your friends. But that is the past. It isn't too late even now to do what Ilyan wanted. You can do what he wanted. Fight for Earth. For your home."

My home? My sky? My sky is empty. This is not my home. I never had a home. What had I fought for all these years? Only for my life and my unit. And aside from Maiga, who I hoped had been smart enough to stay away from this planet, my unit lay dead under the sky of an alien world. My sky is empty.

"Jadeth," Sadra spoke again. "You are a soldier. You fight, that's what you are for. I've seen your record, you are a good soldier. With men like you, we can have a chance. We can fight them."

I looked at her, at the hopeful look on her face. She had edged forward a little again. She stood only a couple of metres from the table now, looking up at me.

"Jadeth. You are the best Earth has to offer."

I stared at her. The best? Me? I lost any final doubts about what I planned to do. It must be right. Simply the fact I could even contemplate such a thing proved that. Proved that we deserved it.

I shot Sadra. I shot the others. They screamed and panicked and ran around, trying to hide. But I just stood up there on the table and picked them off one by one.

I didn't even check afterwards to make sure they were dead, which my old instructors would have knocked points off for. But they all lay still as I stood there, my gun warm in my hand.

Behind me, the wall screens babbled with dozens of voices. Urgent signals, desperate to contact High Command, begging for orders. I glanced over at the doors when I heard a rumbling noise from the other side. I knew the guards must be trying to break in.

Time for it to end.

I jumped down off the table and holstered my weapon. The wall screens all showed different scenes, but when I selected one comms signal to respond to, touching it on screen, all the monitors switched to the same scene. A room not unlike this one, though smaller, on board a ship. A table, with generals sitting around it, but not humans. Several each of Chiamajan, Ayokidishi, Kitsnujitar and Muaan Qacia. The Big Four.

"Welcome to Earth," I said and laughed.

I brought up a small display screen in front of me. I had access to everything from this room. I needed no codes, no security clearance. Being in this room proved my authority. I took out my Snapper and double-checked the commands I needed to access the controls for the orbiting weapons platforms.

"Identify yourself," one of the Okis demanded.

"I'm a human," I said, not looking up at them, too busy.

They glanced at each other, seemed puzzled. This probably wasn't standard General-speak.

"You speak for your people?" The same Oki asked. I looked up at the screen and smiled.

"Yeah, why not? Haven't you heard? I'm the best Earth has to offer."

More puzzlement. I looked away from them again, still working on the weapons platforms controls. At last, I brought up the command I needed. Just one touch would do it now.

"Your fleet is completely dessstroyed," a Muaan Qacia hissed. Lied actually, since I knew plenty of ships still lay inside the orbit of the weapons platforms, protected.

"Desssstroyed eh?" I mocked his accent. "Oh, that's a shame, some of them were new."

"We demand your immediate unconditional surrender!" A Kitsnujitar commander snarled. "You will give up your weapons."

Give me your rifle.

"Come and take it!" I gave the instinctive, if ungrammatical response.

They sat back, looking more at ease now, thinking they could understand the situation. I'd change their minds about that in a moment.

"Then you intend to fight?" A Chiamajan general asked, sounding satisfied, as if he'd been rehearsing that line for a while. Perhaps they'd drawn lots to see who got to say it.

"No."

They sat up again, gone from puzzled to full on baffled now. I pressed a button on my screen. The final command to disengage the weapons platforms. To leave no defence between the alien fleet and the planet.

I looked back up at the screen.

"Kill us. Kill us all."