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Tran Pham “Spooky” Nguyen cinched his harness even tighter as the hybrid shuttle bucked him upward against the restraints for the umpteenth time. Two dozen other passengers rocked and jerked in time with him, all tossed synchronously by the buffeting as the spaceplane bled off speed in the upper atmosphere.
One man vomited into a sick bag. Another didn’t quite get his to his mouth in time and some effluvium leaked past the thin plastic onto his stained and blackened coverall. The stench wafted through the bare-bones compartment and soon others were holding up sacks and filling them.
Spooky breathed through his mouth and employed Dadirri mental techniques to decouple his senses from his bodily reactions, and closed his eyes to reduce the input he had to deal with. The shuttle would make landfall in Australia soon, and he had endured far worse things while stalking Viet Cong and Viet Minh in his native Vietnamese highlands.
A Thuong Degar, commonly called a Montagnard by the French and Americans in the country, his mountain tribes had been persecuted by the lowland Vietnamese who had sold themselves to the Communist ideology. His father had taught him at an early age to kill those who would impose their ways on the highlanders, and he’d done it well.
When the dope-smoking, communist-sympathizing, hippie American civilians forced his beloved Green Berets to abandon the fight, the young insurgent had kept on killing, using Cambodia as a base as the lowlanders burned villages and ethnically cleansed his tribal areas to expand their cash-producing coffee plantations. Eventually he had joined the so-called boat people and made his way to the United States as a refugee.
Arriving in San Francisco, he found that same exotic coffee sold to those same aging self-righteous Jane Fonda generation peaceniks. As far as he was concerned, they drank the blood of his people. It was all he could do not to kill them too, but even as young as he was, he knew not all Americans were so stupid.
In Greensboro, North Carolina he found the largest concentration of his Degar people in the U.S.
In nearby Fort Bragg, he found his real home: the U.S. Army Special Forces.
The Green Berets.
He enlisted, and they were glad to have him, especially after he demonstrated some of his skills. Combat missions all over the world had honed and perfected his special operations craft.
Now Spooky could hardly recall his own previous life from behind the alterations wrought by the Eden Plague, the nuclear near-apocalypse, and the coming of the Meme Demon Plagues on Earth. He’d changed so much...grown so much.
An especially severe shock shook him out of his near-trance, and he heard the landing gear whine down and lock. If he’d had a window, he knew he would see Exmouth Spaceport, so named for the nearby town and gulf. No more yet than a flattened runway with temporary buildings, it was the site selected to serve as Australia’s main launching facility for the new spacecraft made possible by the cloned Meme fusion bio-engines.
Fifteen minutes later he did see it, as he walked off the spaceplane empty-handed. He’d stowed away on Orion with almost nothing, and he was bringing very little back with him, not even his own identity. Right now, he seemed just one of many returning technicians, who had been working hard to turn the mangled wreck of the warship into a usable orbital space station.
In reality, he had played a vital role in ensuring Orion’s costly defense of Earth had not turned from victory into an ugly coup attempt. Colonel MacAdam, commander of the Space Marines that Spooky had trained, had almost been blackmailed into mutiny by Ariadne Smythe, the head of the secret Council of Nine, Australia’s Psycho-run shadow government. Had he done so, Orion and her nuclear weapons would have constituted a Damoclesian sword poised above all the other nations of the world.
This would have been disastrous for the Earth. With no more than nine short years to prepare for the coming of the Meme Destroyer – reportedly an enormous space warship fully capable of living up to its name – humanity’s only chance was to remain united in purpose and in politics. There was just one man that could keep them together.
Spooky Nguyen? He laughed to himself as he strode across the hot packed dirt of the roughly fashioned runway toward the growing cluster of buildings. The siren’s song of ambition, of lust for power, keened somewhere in the background of his mind, but he ignored it. No, not me. At least, not yet. Perhaps someday he would rule an empire, but the ability to delay gratification was one of his many strengths – to take the long view. To do what was best for himself by doing what was best for those around him, thus elevating all.
No, the one man who could keep the fragile alliance together, the concord that put an end to the nuclear exchanges and the infighting, that maneuvered the majority of the nations of Earth into contributing to the construction of the battleship Orion, was Daniel Markis.
Spooky’s next mission he set himself, therefore, was to determine how to help Markis do it.
Approaching the administrative structures near the prefab hangars, he ran his eyes over at least a dozen distinct clusters of activity throwing clay dust into the burning air. Each represented another hangar, or the site of some kind of permanent facility. Beyond them Spooky could see at least thirty ships – naval, cargo, and specialized construction vessels – rapidly improving the seaport or unloading materials. If he was any judge, within a year the world’s first true spaceport would be fully functioning.
Looking around, he tried to find some sign or indication of where he could get some transportation around the Gulf to the western side where the port of Exmouth sat. Originally established as a submarine base in World War Two, until now it had been a sleepy tourist town best known for its access to the ocean reefs.
One sign he spotted was unexpected: SAVE THE REEFS shouted garishly in pink paint on a crude wooden placard carried by a weather-beaten woman with the young-old look of a recently elderly Eden Plague infectee. Everyone was ignoring her as she loudly proclaimed her environmental message.
The woman’s presence actually heartened him. It said a lot for the government that it still allowed free speech and lawful protest, no matter how misguided. Spooky would be happy to sacrifice any number of reefs to ensure Earth’s military power could defend them from absorption by the Meme.
Survival trumped all.
Another sign caught his eye, but this one read “Exmouth Shuttle.” A new but already dusty air-conditioned bus waited and a queue of people filed into it. He was about to join the line when he sensed an incoming missile.
Taking a step forward, he turned to avoid the blood orange aimed at his head. Reaching up, he caught it as it went past, simultaneously searching for the source of the throw.
A late-model Land Rover, pearl white and far less dusty than everything else in sight, supported the shapely derriere of a stunning dusky-skinned woman with high cheekbones and lustrous black hair. Merriment danced in her exotic eyes as Spooky smiled and split the fruit in half with his roughened hands.
Without breaking her locked gaze, he walked toward the woman and the SUV, peeling the crimson orange halves. One piece went into his own mouth, bursting flavor almost unbearably sweet after two months of packaged rations. The other, on the tips of his fingers, went into hers.
For a moment her lips lingered on his hand, promises of things to come, before they found his mouth and fused to him. Juice spurted past their kisses and ran onto her brightly colored sun dress, mingling with the patterns there. She slid off the fender into his arms, but her feet never touched the ground as he held her against the vehicle’s shiny surface.
“Tran,” she breathed when they finally separated. “I missed you.”
Spooky tried to set her down but her legs twined around him hungrily, clamping to his waist. He suppressed a demanding surge of lust. “So I see. I missed you too, Ann, but shall we get inside this fine vehicle? People are beginning to stare.”
“Let them stare.”
He shook his head. “I prefer not to draw attention to myself, and you are nothing if not worthy of attention.”
Ann Alkina’s pout smoothed out and she let go her full-body embrace. “As you wish. The inside is very comfortable.” Sloe-eyed, she reached around him to open the passenger door.
Spooky slid into the seat and clicked on the belt.
Ann’s pout returned when she climbed into the driver’s seat and saw what he had done. “Two months and all you can think about is business?”
Spooky blinked once, slowly, then winked his right eye. “No, I merely haven’t been really clean in all that time and I prefer our first session together in months to be...exceptional.”
“Good answer.” She put the SUV in Drive and roared off, dodging among the people and other vehicles with reckless abandon, eventually rolling over a curb and onto a paved road.
“What’s in Exmouth? A flight?”
“No, I decided to bring the yacht.”
“Slow travel...wench.” he chuckled. “A ploy to get me all to yourself for a week.”
“Only five days. And the long-range comms are functioning. I’m not a fool. You’ll be able to work.”
“An aircraft still might have been wiser.”
She eyed him briefly as she drove moderately in the left – the slow – lane of the highway to Exmouth. “You can always call for a seaplane, but this way I at least get you for one day. And I thought it best to brief you at leisure on what’s been going on back in Sydney and at the Outback site. It might mitigate any...hastiness.”
“When have I ever been hasty?”
“Even so...”
Spooky sighed. “All right. I’ll defer to your judgment for the nonce. Do you have any sort of foul weed about?”
She gestured toward the glovebox, where he found a pack of slim cigars and a lighter. Soon the vehicle filled with fragrant smoke. He cracked a window as he took a deep drag, and sighed with pleasure as the nicotine hit his bloodstream.
A few minutes later they turned off the main highway and drove through the edge of the port to a private wharf. Alkina did not stop when she got to the pier, but rolled slowly onto it and thence up a heavy-duty brow directly through the cargo hatch of a yacht of at least fifty meters length. Bates Motel was painted across the stern: a private joke.
Inside, white-clad crewmembers, mostly short men and women noticeably resembling Spooky, rushed to close the hatch, open doors and offer their services. On the deck, the boat’s captain and officers lined up and bowed. “Welcome back, General,” the skipper said.
Each nametag on their uniforms said Nguyen, and each was related to him in some way, as well as being thoroughly vetted Eden Plague carriers. Here aboard, at least, he had very little to fear from treachery or spies. “Thank you all,” Spooky replied with genuine warmth, giving the lie to those who said all Psychos were cold and sociopathic. Even the most selfish soul could respond to sincere and hard-earned adulation.
“I need to clean up now. Please continue to take instructions from Colonel Alkina, and I will see you at dinner.” He exchanged bows with them again, and then with great relief followed Ann to the master cabin.
After – truth be told, even during – a thorough sudsing shower and then bath, they indulged themselves in languid sex, reacquainting themselves within the ancient rite of man and woman. Spooky watched carefully for any alteration, any sign of change between them, and found something interesting.
As they lay sated in the bed, facing each other on opposite elbows, his eyes flicked a question toward her chest, and the faintest of new scars.
“Yes. I had it removed,” she replied.
“Why?” His query held no anger, only curiosity.
“Aside from the feeling anyone with the code and a transmitter could end me? To prove to you that I love you.”
“Oh? I would have thought leaving it there was greater proof.”
Her eyelashes batted once, twice. “Did you get out of practice, up there in space?”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps I want to hear it from you.”
“All right.” Ann ran a long nail down her sternum, then tapped it twice. “You have no easy hold over me anymore. I had two months to do what I will and would, but I am now here, with you. When we get back, you can examine all I did in your name. You may not agree with everything, but you will find nothing disloyal.”
Spooky searched her face for the truth, and found no lies there.
Ann rolled toward him, arms above her head, to spoon her naked back into his equally bare chest. “I love you, Nguyen Tran Pham.”
“Love is not always forever.” Cruel words, but he wished to ensure no doubts between them, for he did not base his life on sentiment.
“But ownership is.” She squirmed so that she lay on her back, her flank fitting perfectly into the curve of his hips, cheek to thigh. “I am yours, Tran. You taught me what it was to be a new kind of human, when others thought those like us were...worthless. You gave me the most important gift anyone can give.”
“Respect?” He kissed only her forehead, so that she could respond.
“A home. A family. A place to belong.” She turned her face to nuzzle his chest.
“Yes...for people like us...” It’s a family of tigers...but even tigers mate, and refrain from killing each other, usually. Perhaps... He wondered whether this was the one woman in all the world whom he could trust...or was it all just a deep and clever stratagem to get rid of him?
He shook briefly, like a dog, trying to rid himself of that idea. Such thoughts could become self-fulfilling prophecies.
“I’ve lost you again, haven’t I?”
“Never,” he replied. “Just can’t stop my mind from running.”
Ann sighed wistfully. “I’m glad we have a thousand years. I’ll wait that long if I have to.”
He didn’t ask “for what.” Maybe someday he would be able to give her what she craved. Until then...he’d give her what he could.
