CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Mike and Joe talked long into the night in their cubicle.
Joe said, “You could be killed. It might not work.”
“I’ve got my implant. I used it to defend us against a ship here on the planet. Now we’ve got zukoh. With my implant might the effect go much higher than yours did against Vov on Earth?”
“Theoretically, it could travel between planets.”
“It just needs to reach the ships above us.”
Joe said, “It could kill you. On Earth it almost did me, and we’re talking about far greater power here. And you’ve got to find a storm. And there will be thousands of ships. And we don’t know how accurate our weapon is.”
“So, it’s hopeless. I know you’re not suggesting we just give up.”
“I’m frightened for you.”
“I’m frightened for both of us, all of us. Gay people on this planet. Gay people in this part of the galaxy. I’ve got a weapon. I want to use it. I want to hurt the sons of bitches. I want to beat them.”
Mike finished in a whisper. “I want them to die. I want Bex to cease to exist in an explosion more painful than hell, than any hell ever imagined on Earth times ten million. I’ve never been this angry and frustrated. I think the zukoh actually makes it worse. It’s like we’ve got a weapon. It’s within our reach, but we could all just die. And it’s all useless and hopeless.”
Joe held him tight. “It’s not useless. You’ve done, we’ve done everything we could.”
“And maybe I can do this. If I go high enough there will a storm. There always are, every day. You know that.”
“I’ll go with.”
“You need to stay here and help make sure they attack me first before all you guys.”
“That would be illogical on their part.”
Mike said, “You’ve got to stay here. You’ve got to make sure Bex and his minions fire on me.”
“We went together to get the Leavers.”
“But that was just us. I need you, we need you here, to make decisions. Someone has got to be in charge down here making sure you time this as best we can to greatest effect.”
“If the timing is off?”
“I guess we die.”
They both drew deep breaths. Joe said, “And we have to hope your device can call down lighting, use zukoh, and that it’s powerful enough to deflect an attack from the entire fleet or the most powerful ships in it.”
“Pretty much.”
“It’s suicide.”
“Remember what happened to the pirate ship, and I didn’t have lightning for that.”
“Yeah.”
“And what you did with lightning on Earth. And what I did with lightning up in the mountains.”
“Okay, but.”
“And this just adds the zukoh. Remember the Religionists couldn’t control it, but Bex could. I think Snek has built something that will work.”
Joe pulled Mike tighter into his arms. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“When you went up against Vov, you risked everything to save Earth, me, our relationship. I would do the same for you and all of us here. I can’t do less. Bex is pissed. We know that. His hatred of me is irrational. We’ll use that against him. My guess is he’d run over Mr. Spock with a bulldozer.” Mike and Joe had watched all the old Star Trek TV episodes and movies together while they were on Earth.
Joe said, “You can get up higher in the mountains with the new diggings. We’ve continued in that direction since we got back with every new group of colonists. And you can use an ATV outside so you can go faster for much of the way. You’ll have to get to the zukoh and then go back out to get into a storm.”
“I went over it all with Snek today.”