Battle of Earth Read online

  Major White shook his head.

  “We just verify… weight,” he said.

  Troy went back to the crate, looking up at the top edge of the crate for the bolts that should have been there, but instead he found padlocks.

  “Cutters,” he said. There was another heavy sigh and Troy shook his head. “Now.”

  “I’ll do it,” Bridgette said, heading back toward the door.

  “You don’t have clearance,” Major White said, but Senator Greene put out an arm.

  “She does, today,” she said. “Just respect the red line.”

  Bridgette was still moving as if no one was going to stop her, and Troy nodded to himself. That was an attitude he could work with.

  They waited awkwardly for about five minutes, and then Bridgette came back with a huge set of bolt cutters, handing them to Troy.

  “Prop up the side,” he told her. “It shouldn’t take much to hold it, but if it comes down on me, it’ll put me in the hospital.”

  She shrugged her mouth, going to the corner and holding it with her entire forearm. Troy cut the pair of padlocks and hopped on his toes to pop them off of their latches, then hopped again to undo the latches themselves. He went to the other side of the crate, Major White, Colonel Peterson, Senator Greene, and Malcolm reorienting themselves to be able to look into the crate as Troy opened it.

  He nodded at Bridgette, and they let the side of the crate drop.

  *********

  They sat facing each other at the glass-topped table in the room.

  The suite was elegant, full of curves and white and glass and cream, beautiful hard surfaces and soft, tactile seating and reclining. One full wall and the ceiling let in light from outside during the day, then glowed with a soft gold at night. It was such a lovely place to be. As a human, Cassie might have spent an entire day enjoying the way it looked and felt to be here.

  Or maybe not.

  They hadn’t said anything for a while, but it didn’t meant they hadn’t been communicating. They were watching each other, reading each other’s faces, their postures, the way they moved. It was profound how much information was there, and Cassie appreciated sitting with someone who could hold a whole conversation like that.

  “Palta relationships aren’t easy,” he finally said.

  “Nothing about Palta is easy,” Cassie answered. “We’re too independent to have a… converging of people, the way it works for humans.”

  He nodded.

  “Yes.”

  “And passion,” Cassie said. “Passion is very different.”

  “But no less,” Jesse said, lifting his chin a fraction.

  “I’m not wholly Palta,” she said.

  “All the harder,” Jesse said.

  “You talk like I’m selling something,” Cassie said. His finger ticked. He thought she was. It had upset him to think that she was willing to let it go that easily.

  She moved her thumb, smooth across the surface of the table. Self-soothing, at one level, the cool feel of the glass, but indicated at him. He worried too much. His forehead re-set, a question. Did she love him?

  It was a rude question, but asked organically like that, just a shade more than unintentionally, it didn’t have the same push as coming out and asking.

  The problem was that she didn’t know the answer.

  She’d loved Troy. That had been simple and straightforward and easy.

  Jesse was none of those.

  But so much more rewarding.

  Troy, when she’d loved him, had been a simple, straightforward, and powerful but dull man, one who had been so much less than Cassie had been at the same time, and while she had accepted it, while it had never dimmed her feelings for him, it had been something she’d been aware of, something that, by contrast, made Jesse shine with how well he fit to her mind.

  She loved being around him. He made her ridiculously happy, when she let it happen, on accident, as it were, and she just wanted to run around the universe and play with him, ignore responsibility and what other people needed. Or maybe that was exactly what made the games so fascinating.

  They had important outcomes.

  She licked her lips. Thoughtful, uncommitted. She knew it was important. But she didn’t have an answer. Four fingers turned under a fraction, withdrawing, and she let him go.

  “Will they bring the equipment you need, do you plan on making it out of tools available, or do you need to go get it?” she asked.

  “How would you do it?” he asked.

  “Depends on the goal,” she told him. “If I was trying to impress you, it would be exclusively with stuff I could find in this room. If I wanted scientifically precise measurements of a very specific nature, I’d just go buy the stuff and come back. I doubt the resort wins, no matter what.”

  He put two pairs of fingers together under his chin, offset from each other to form a pair of Xs, like a camp chair.

  “I want to check your buoyancy,” he said.

  “What do you plan to use as a baseline?” she asked.

  “Table reference. I assume you know your weight before she possessed you.”

  “That’s a bit forward, don’t you think?” Cassie teased. “Why buoyancy? They’re energy creatures.”

  “Yes, but they have an adaptiveness to water,” Jesse said. She narrowed her eyes.

  “This is to make sure I’m healthy, isn’t it?” she asked. “To make sure she isn’t upsetting my chemical equilibrium.”

  “Before we take our time, I think it’s worth verifying that we have time to take,” he told her. “I assume you know how to start the measurement?”

  “Rig the tub to overflow, fill it up, get in,” she said. He nodded.

  “And I’ll go see what the resort has in terms of measurement devices.”

  She raised an eye brow and his little fingers ticked out. Victory.

  “When a Palta makes a request at a place like this, everyone pays attention,” he said. “You’ll never go to a resort of this quality again that doesn’t stock the equipment we’re looking for. And more.”

  Cassie nodded.

  “Shaping the world around you.”

  “It’s an art, really,” he said with a wink, then spun up and out of his chair. “Sirens. Really? I try to take one day off of being me, and you come up with a Siren.”

  “You weren’t taking the day off,” Cassie accused as he started for the door, and while they both knew exactly what she was talking about, neither of them acknowledged it, and then he was gone.

  *********

  There was a dry, bristly noise as the wall of the crate fell, and for a moment Troy considered in horror the possibility of a booby-trapped consignment, but the looks on everyone’s faces told him it wasn’t that.

  He peered around the edge of the crate and came face to face with the largest rhinoceros in the entire universe. Its shoulders went to the top of the crate, and back legs tucked straight underneath its belly, a fat, flat face with pinkish eyes settled deep into the fat of its neck and chest. It shifted, dry, hair-spotted skin scratching against itself, and it sighed, giving off the scent of swamp and rotten teeth. Troy turned his face away and took a step back as the creature shifted again, peering out weakly at the light.

  “Estonia?” Troy asked, going to stand next to Malcolm and Peterson.

  “It is secured, isn’t it?” Senator Greene said.

  “There’s a metal collar around its neck that looks like it’s secured to the back of the box,” Bridgette said, still only feet away from the creature.

  “Are you sentient?” Troy asked, taking a step forward. The creature shifted again, still blinking, tugging once in a lazy kind of way at the chain, then settling again.

  “Does that mean no?” Senator Greene asked.

  “Just means it doesn’t speak English,” Peterson said, and Troy glanced back at him.

  “Which one of us has been off planet?” Troy challenged, and Peterson put up his hands without offense.

&nbs
p; Troy took another step forward, up onto the prone side of the crate.

  “This is illegal,” he said. “The intentional import of living foreign terrestrials was strictly banned under the portal program’s constitution, and they’ve put it in half a dozen laws since then.”

  “Yes, I’m glad you’re very up to date,” Senator Greene said. “What would you do with it?”

  “Most exotic pet on the planet,” Peterson said.

  Troy looked back for a moment.

  “Major White,” he said. “How many of these have you shipped since this portal was operational?”

  “I’d have to check my records,” the Major said uncomfortably.

  “They’ll be on your desk by lunch,” Bridgette said. Troy held out a finger toward her.

  “If you wouldn’t mind telling me where that is, that would be great.”

  “Yes, sir,” she answered. Troy took one more step forward. Looked over at the security guards.

  “You guys know what’s in here?” he asked. “I’m going to give you one shot at telling me the truth, and if I find out you lied to me, you will never be allowed on base grounds again.”

  “Because they’ll be in prison,” Senator Greene said.

  Both men took a step forward, carefully staying out of line with the front of the crate.

  “No, sir,” one of them said.

  “We just accompany and deliver paperwork,” the other said.

  “Who set up the transfer?” Troy asked.

  They both shook their heads.

  “We’re contract,” the first one said. “We don’t ever talk to any of the customers.”

  “I need to speak to the person at your company who does,” Troy said.

  “You will have a meeting with them at two,” Bridgette said. “I assume that using Air Force resources to fly them here if they are elsewhere is appropriate?”

  “Whatever you need, Bridgette,” Senator Greene said. “I’ll go to bat for you when there’s an accountability chain to second-guess it.”

  Bridgette gave the Senator a curt little nod, then wrote something down on her phone.

  Troy shook his head.

  “What does it eat?” he asked no one in particular. He looked at the guards. “The person on the other side of the sale,” he said. “Human or native?”

  “Human,” the first man said. Troy nodded.

  “Bridgette, I need you to get me a list of all humans on the far side of jumps from this portal installation.”

  “Before end of business,” Bridgette said. Troy looked back at Major White.

  “And the one that they were working with, on this,” he said. “I need you to get word to him that we need instructions on how to care for this beast, and let him know that he is being recalled once he procures the supplies necessary to do that for… two weeks.”

  “Yes,” Major White said. “Okay.”

  “Who is he?” Peterson asked. “Is he one of mine?”

  Major White was quiet.

  Very, very quiet.

  Troy cast one last glance at the rhinoceros, then turned his back on it to look at Major White.

  “No, sir,” White said. “Donovan had a separate jumper program that he put together.”

  “Where did he get his recruits?” Troy asked. “Who was training them?”

  “Some navy,” Major White said. “Some external. They train here in the building. I can take you up to meet them.”

  Troy nodded.

  What his staff in the lab would have done to get their hands on a live specimen of any size, not to mention one bigger than a tank.

  He needed people he could trust to follow up with things like this.

  He couldn’t do it himself.

  “Bridgette, call Conrad and have him send Celeste and Benji over here to process a jump.”

  “All right,” she said.

  “Major White, call your people at the gate and get them put on the list.”

  “I need their serial numbers,” Major White said, and Troy shook his head.

  “They’re both civilians.”

  “I have their ID numbers,” Malcolm said, pulling his phone out of his jacket pocket and browsing it.

  “They don’t have the authority to tell any of the officers in the building what to do,” Peterson warned quietly. “You want security here to keep this where you know about it.”

  “You have anyone you trust?” Troy asked in the same tone.

  “I do at school,” Peterson said. “They’re young but…”

  “But they’re allowed to carry guns,” Troy said. He glanced at Senator Greene. “I can overturn that because I’m in charge, now, right?”

  “Need it in writing,” Senator Greene said.

  “Give me five minutes,” Bridgette said. Troy frowned at her, then nodded at Peterson.

  “Get three of your sharpest and have them arm up. They’ll be the only ones on base with guns, and I figure that’s going to put them in charge, most places.”

  Peterson nodded, getting out his phone and stepping away from the group. Troy looked at Major White.

  “So you have your own jump school,” he said. “And you’ve been bypassing the labs for months.”

  White nodded.

  “We have our own facilities.”

  “And how did you staff them?”

  “All contract,” he said.

  “How did you handle security, if everything was secret?” Malcolm asked. “The background checks for a job on the portal program are exhaustive.”

  Major White shook his head.

  “I didn’t handle hiring,” he said. “The names came from Donovan’s office, and…” He sighed. “Look. She said I had amnesty, so long as I didn’t leave anything out. You aren’t going to like it, but I have to show you the dormitories.”

  Troy raised his eyebrows and Senator Greene took a step forward.

  “I said you had immunity so long as you were incredibly helpful and hadn’t done anything so grotesquely irresponsible that I couldn’t stomach pardoning you,” she said. “What are you talking about?”

  He shook his head.

  “I just have to show you.”

  Bridgette came over to Troy, swiping a document on her phone.

  “Read and sign,” she said. “It’s a pretty simple order.”

  She’d procured an order that said that members of the military were allowed to carry side arms on base. She handed him a stylus and he signed, dated, and showed it to Senator Greene when she put her hand out to see it. She looked at it down her nose, then nodded.

  “That’s in order.”

  Troy gave Peterson a thumbs up and Bridgette stepped away to make her call as Peterson came back.

  “They’re on their way.”

  All right, give their info to White to get them through the gate and in the door. Major, you need someone at the front door to escort them directly back here.”

  Major White nodded, making his own series of phone calls, and then everyone was hung up and ready to go again. Troy looked one last time at the great beast in the crate, sorry for it but elated at the same time that he even got to see it, then pointed at the guards.

  “You stay there until someone tells you that you can go. You don’t interfere with anything that goes on here, and if anyone asks you a direct question, you answer it.”

  “You’re caught up in a smuggling operation,” Senator Greene said. “And your names are the ones on the papers. If there’s any reason to believe that you’ve impeded any investigation into what happened, you will be charged.”

  She gave them a quick nod, and then they were walking again, out into a hallway, up a set of stairs, across a second-story walkway between buildings, and into…

  Once more, Troy was at a loss.

  The smell was odd.

  Foreign, but not like jumps were. Jumps brought in air that wasn’t from earth. This was more like smelling cooking he’d never smelled before, a combination of scents that were completely unfamiliar,
but in air that was familiar.

  Their path hit a T with a hallway, and Major White signaled to an Airman, returning his salute without making him leave his windowed post at the intersection of the hallways. White turned right, going down three doors and knocking.

  “He speaks English,” he said. “Very curious. Likes trying our things.”

  The door opened and Troy blinked to be looking into a set of gold eyes with long, long eyelashes.

  “Major,” the foreign terrestrial said, taking a step back from the door. “What can I do for you?”

  He was humanoid, mostly. His arms were much longer than human and his stance more square over wide, turned-out feet, but he wore boxers and a white tank top, and he dipped his head in something approaching a greeting to the rest of them.

  “Henry,” Major White said, “this is Major Rutger. He’s going to be running the dormitory now. Major, this is Henry, one of our first refugees.”

  The foreign terrestrial bobbed his head again.

  “Would you like to come in?” he asked. “I’m cooking my lunch.”

  “What is it?” Malcolm asked.

  “Um,” the foreign terrestrial said. “Roast bread with meat sauce and carrots.”

  “Haven’t got the recipe right, have you?” Major White asked. Henry’s fingers, eight of them, in an arc around the end of his hands and up the centers of each wrist, rubbed at each other.

  “No, it isn’t like home, but you have to keep trying.”

  “Where is home?” Peterson asked.

  Henry made a braying noise that Troy’s implant only managed to pick up that it was language, and Major White glanced over.

  “We refer to it as Host Five.”

  “So there are Hosts One, Two, Three, and Four, then?” Senator Greene asked.

  “Twenty-three,” Major White said.

  “In how much time?” Troy demanded. “We’re doing well if we get established contact with two species in a year.”

  He’d known that they were going to start bringing in refugees. The now-retired Secretary of the Air Force had indicated as much, but Troy had never guessed it would have gotten this far.

  Major White licked his lips.

  “We don’t have the same… red tape, that you do.”

  Troy looked at Henry.

  “I’d like to have a much more… thorough conversation with you,” he said. “But I’m afraid I have a lot of other things to look at right now.”