Broken Soldier (Book One) (26 page)

Wayne mumbled, “That’s amazing and so frighteningly
easy.”

Hey, it isn’t easy. I had to review three years
worth of conversations and that was after hacking into the
communication system. There are several different data challenges
and encryptions I have to crack, before I can emulate the
appropriate responses required, without leaving a trail. When I
start speaking to the White House receptionist, I’ll have to
undergo a voice analysis, before their computers let me in. It’s
going to take me over forty seconds to do all that. So, don’t say
it’s easy.

Contritely Wayne said, “Sorry.”

Mary brought up an ugly possibility. “Do you think
anyone will be harmed in any of these operations?”

“Yes, I do. In the short period of time we’ve had to
plan these events, I feel that the arrangements are as solid as we
can make them. Unfortunately, I’m sure we’ve overlooked something.
Nothing ever goes as smooth as you wish. It isn’t our intention to
do anyone any harm, but I charge each one of you with this thought.
Right now, Bambi, and the five of us are all that stands between
the Earth and the Saurans. If we fail here, humanity has no chance
against those guys.

“We need every one of you. So, if the shit hits the
fan and you are threatened, stun if you must and kill if it is the
only way to escape. It’s cruel, but it could be the only option you
have. So please choose to survive for all of humanity, by killing a
few, if necessary.”

Wayne mumbled, “Damn that’s cold.”

Mike angrily scolded his son. “Yes it is. But it’s a
damn sight better than the genocide of the entire human race.”

Embarrassed, Wayne said, “I know. Don’t worry, I’ll
do my job.”

“I know you will, son. I’ve got a feeling that
before this is over; we’re all going to have to do some very
unpleasant things. But, the Earth is counting on us, even though
they don’t know it, yet.”

Bambi had the large shuttle loaded with portable med
units, supplies for Jo and the four humans plus a half-ton of gold,
which was in a storage space in one of the small shuttles. There
were two more tons of it; but Mike felt it would be wise to hold
onto the rest for now. Once they had a deal in place and the
initial group of warriors was onboard, they could begin delivering
on the promise of more wealth to the nations that would work with
them.

Wayne wanted to fly the small shuttle, once they
arrived on Earth, but Mike denied his request. “Don’t worry, Wayne,
you’ll be flying soon enough. For the moment, let’s concentrate on
securing more pilots. Bambi can give you the info on flying them
and their handling characteristics, on the way down and back up.
She did it for Jo and me. It works great.

“With her help, you’ll be able to run a flight
simulator in your head. It feels like your flying, because she
provides the sense that you’re actually moving in space and she
gives you various images to view, just like the real thing.”

Wayne blurted out, “Really Bambi, you can do
that?”

Yes I can. But, you have to allow me to use the
pop-top method to access all of your senses.

Would I be giving you my thoughts as well?

Privately she told him;
You would be an open
book, while I danced around inside your mind. But that’s not what I
would be there for, so I wouldn’t do that. I have better things to
do.

There was silence in Wayne’s brain, and then Bambi
said,
I’ve already been inside of your head, Wayne. I had to do
it, in order to help you make it through the upgrade. I know about
the close call you had, when that missile damn near blew your ass
off. And I know how terrified you were and you thought for sure you
were going to die. But, two days later, you were right back up
there, even though you were scared to death. No one knows but me.
I’m not going to tell a soul, although it might be helpful if you
talked about it with your wife some day.

Sheepishly he commed,
“Yeah, I know. I will,
Bambi. Thanks for the pick me up.

No problem. You know, you’re not the only person
I’ve had to pick up. One of the things I like about humans is their
emotional frailty. The fact that they feel fear, or have guilt,
when they misbehave is a good thing to me. In spite of those
factors, they continue to get the job done.

I saw inside a few Sauran minds and I can tell you
they have a fear that is very deep and they never let it out. And
they damn sure don’t ever feel guilt. They are cold-blooded
bastards.

Al Benson was the worst of the PTSD cases on board.
Mike wasn’t aware of it, but the guy had seen the elephant a few
times, before Iraq, and it scared the hell out of him. Seeing men
you knew killed, or wounded was difficult for a lot of soldiers to
handle. But, with Al, it had triggered his past, when an uncle had
molested him for four years. The only thing that stopped it from
continuing was that his uncle was killed in a bar fight.

Bambi had read over two hundred books on child
molestation and several books on PTSD. She realized that many of
the wounded men they were recruiting would need counseling, once
they had been through the upgrade. Just because their bodies had
been repaired and enhanced, didn’t mean they were whole. Their
souls had been injured as well as their bodies and they would need
nurturing, before the warriors were complete humans again, albeit
upgraded ones.

Max had his own set of issues, which went back to
his earliest days of combat. Young soldiers have no idea what a
true warrior like Max had gone through, to survive and become a
General. The man had seen his share of broken and twisted friends
lying on the battlefield. But he had faired well, in dealing with
it.

When she mentioned that to him, he told her, “I
don’t know why, but some people are better at handling reality and
grief than others. I’ve been lucky to be able to distance myself
from the grief and deal with the immediate situation. The decisions
I made usually saved lives and I felt pretty good about that.”

Mary had surprised Bambi. Her love for Wayne was
powerful and her fear of losing him was too. She acted as though
she had it under control, but there was an underlying terror,
whenever she thought of Wayne going into combat.

After the upgrade, Bambi brought it up with her and
Mary talked about it, saying, “I haven’t had anyone to talk to
about this since he made squadron commander. All of the other wives
looked to me for support. So, I had to suck it up and soldier on,
like a good Marine commander’s wife. But, every time his plane left
the flight deck I knew he was in danger. Hell, just landing was a
controlled crash, as they say.”

They talked frequently and Mary made Bambi promise
to remain quiet about her fears. Bambi promised, but only if Mary
would promise to talk about her fears with Wayne and to listen to
his fears. Mary was very perceptive and she gasped, when Bambi said
it that way.

“Oh my God, I’ve been so selfish. I should have
known he had plenty of things to fear. What are they, Bambi? If I
know, I can get him to talk about them.”

Bambi commed,
“I won’t do that, Mary. I have to
maintain my integrity with everyone. In this regard, I’m like a
Catholic Priest. I have heard his confession and I am bound to
remain silent and keep it between the two of us.

So, the small band of warriors spent the next few
days winding their way to Earth. Bambi sent a few of the huge
mining robots out to find precious metals, in the asteroid field.
She assured Mike that they would not be sending any signal, until
she pinged them, upon their return. So, there was no reason to
worry about triggering a Sauran beacon. In the mean time, the
robots would identify those bodies that had the various resources
they needed.

Everyone practiced on their comming ability. It was
Mary who asked about transmission range.

On the Mother Ship, we will always have comm inside
and out to about two hundred kilometers, without the use of a
repeater. With a repeater, you can be thousands of kilometers away,
but you’d be revealing your location. Comm between upgrades is
approximately thirty kilometers. But, we will have the benefit of
boosted comm transmissions through the shuttles.

I’ve brought along a few tiny satellites, which
we’ll place near existing ones to hide their presence. Once they’re
in orbit, we’ll have comm over the entire planet and be able to
comm each other, no matter where we are on Earth, because the
satellites are designed to pick up and enhance comm. I don’t think
it would be a good idea to mention that to the President, not at
first, anyway.

The best comm will take place when there is line of
sight availability. We can tight beam anything we want and no one
could intercept the comm. Most of the time, there could be some
detectable radiation, although it’s of a type your people haven’t
discovered yet. Your military might be able to find it, but I doubt
it. If they do, they would probably dismiss it as random wave
propagation, due to some gravatic anomaly. The various broadcasts
coming from your planet are quite heavy and contribute to the
confusion.

Comm trans can’t be altered, but it can be jammed,
if the enemy knows what he’s doing, and the Saurans do. The ship
and shuttle are partially shielded against it. But if you’re caught
out away from the surface of the ship, or on a planet, it is
possible to have the signal blocked by a jammer.

Mary said, “Bambi, you give such precise answers to
my questions. I love that about you.”

Bambi sweetly responded, “Thanks, Mary.”

After several hours of discussion about scientific
realities, Bambi and Mary were developing a warm relationship,
which pleased Mike.

He gave last minute instructions. “We all think at
lighting speeds now and can process events far faster than ever
before. So, I want everyone to stay in constant touch with Bambi.
She will monitor each of us and if there is an event that
jeopardizes one of us, the others will be notified by her. It will
be important to ignore that problem, as you continue with your own
mission.

“The only reason I want you all to be in the loop is
that I might need to send you somewhere else and it will save
precious seconds if you are already aware of the circumstances.
Just lock the reports away in a separate mental compartment and
don’t let them interfere with what you’re doing. If you are needed
for a rescue mission, you will be commed by me immediately. You
people are too valuable to lose.”

He looked over his little group of warriors and
asked, “Are there any questions?”

Silence. They had hashed out every scenario they
could think of and they were as ready as they could be. Al was
already in the large shuttle and would be the first to begin his
assignment.

Hey guys, I just had a ping from one of the passive
outer beacons I placed. There’s a Sauran Transport, passing by and
he’s pinged our ship. I sent a comm back to it; using the standard
Sauran security code indicating everything is OK.

They pinged back that they wouldn’t be stopping, but
that an important shipment was going to be stopping by, in fourteen
months. It would consist of a transport that’s twice our size and
two escorts. You can think of them as corvettes. They are fast and
heavily armed for their size.

This small convoy must be important, because Saurans
don’t send an escorted transport through a safe zone and we are
considered a safe zone.

That’s all I got for you. But one thing for sure,
when they arrive, they’ll want our Senior Pilot to pay his respects
by visiting their ship. That is common practice for the Saurans. It
is a chance for both of them to exchange information on what
they’ve heard about other parts of the galaxy. That visit is going
to be hard for us to do, because Jo fried our Senior Pilot’s
brain.

With the Commanding officer’s permission, I’m going
to have four more beacons sent much farther out. They’ll monitor
the area around the four most likely places for the convoy to
unfold. When they do, the beacon will send a tight beam to the next
series of beacons, and then to the Mother Ship. We’ll have better
notification that way.

Mike asked, “What do you mean by unfolding?”

It’s a space thing. The details are complicated and
I feel it’s best if I explain later, when we’re not about to
assault your planet. If we live through this, I’ll tell ya, OK?

“OK.”

Chapter
15

In a calm steady tone, Mike announced, “All right
everyone, let’s keep it in focus. What we’re about to do is vital
for all of us. We’ve got time to plan for the arrival of that
convoy. And for God’s sake, don’t mention this to anyone on the
planet. We don’t want to cause a panic.

“Do your jobs. Get the people we need on board. Then
we can deal with the next event and I promise you we will deal with
it. There is always a next event, so we’d better get used to
it.”

Everyone indicated their agreement, as Max leaned
over and whispered, “Nice little speech, Mike. You handled that
like a pro.”

“Thanks Max.”

Bambi had made some adjustments to the large
shuttle, which enhanced its stealthy qualities. She explained that
if they approached the Earth slowly, the shuttle probably would not
be noticed now, because it wasn’t generating any heat on its
skin.

They released Al, in the large shuttle, high above
the central area of the United States. It made it’s way down to an
area near Nashville, where a large number of disabled veterans
resided, due to the close proximity of the VA hospital nearby. The
Pavilion was at the edge of the manicured grounds around the
retirement center.

Al had arranged the celebration by making a large
donation to a local support group and had been assured that eighty
to one hundred vets would be there, most of them missing arms or
legs. After being gassed, the non-vets would be taken outside and
laid around the outside of the building, at a safe distance. They
would be considered lucky survivors of the fire, although none of
them would have any memory of escaping the flames.