Chapter 16: The way forward?

"Cheers" Richard said to his drinking buddies. Once again they were sat in his room 'unwinding' after the day's viewing.

The Second day was not as bad for him as the first. They moved from the aliens' atrocities to the x-com initiatives to defeat them. For twelve hours Richard was immersed in the life and death struggles of the commandos that X-com sent to do battle. He saw the early disasters, the aftermath of the attack on the original base, he saw the fear and despair. And then he saw hope, he saw the soldiers of X-com pull themselves up from the darkest pits and keep kicking. He saw beaten and broken men go that extra mile. In those twelve hours he saw more selfless acts of courage than he thought had ever existed in Earth's history. From the rookie who dived in the way of a plasma burst to save his superior officer to the injured agent who literally crawled the last few yards to the enemy command centre, trailing bits of himself behind him, before setting off his grenades. All the way through he saw the resolve. Every single face had it, the unshakable resolve that failure was not an option, that they were part of something larger, that no price was too high.

Richard could see that the couple with him were more affected than him today and without thinking about it resolved to do what he could to ease their pain as they had done for him the day before.

"I see what you mean about Ranma" Richard said. "He really is something else"

"Sure is" replied Laura.

"Who was the Chinese girl?"

"That was his first 'wife'" Laura replied. "She died"

"I saw," Richard confirmed.

"The question is do you understand?" Laura pressed. There was a few seconds silence.

"Yes I think I do" he replied. "I mean not everything, I still couldn't do this" he said waving his hand around. "I guess that's the real problem, we are just not used to people without ulterior motives. You people here are driven beyond what we can understand." Laura and her husband nodded, prompting him. "I mean even after going through all of that you still keep putting your heads back into the tiger's mouth. That takes a sort of courage I don't think I want to have."

"What can I say we're the best!" Laura said imitating Ranma's drawl. Which got a laugh from hr husband and a look of confusion from the envoy.

"So what's next on the list?" he asked with some trepidation.

"I can't say" Laura replied. "and I still don't think you have a right to know."

"Why not?"

"Because Nemesis is about as secret as it gets" the Englishman answered, getting hit on the arm for his effort. "Hey he finds out in six hours time anyway what's a little forewarning going to hurt."

"What's Nemesis?" Richard asked, remembering the hidden file, and his suspicions of embezzlement.

"We can't say" Laura replied, looking at her husband pointedly. "nut you will find out tomorrow."

"Sir its time to wake up!" came the corporal's hateful call. The next day was not a welcome addition to Woolsy's life. Whatever that local moonshine they had been drinking was if sure left a memento to remember it by. Richard had the hangover from hell.

Nevertheless he was up and dressed, telling himself that he was a professional and that he could do this. From his room he was shown to a shuttle hangar, and he noted that he was guarded as he moved. As he stood waiting at the shuttle he was joined by the people he now considered the movers and shakers in this organisation. There was Gos, head of Psychic Operations and by all accounts a genius in his own right; Laura, probably the hardest woman he had ever met; and the Saotomes. All the agents were dressed in flight suits and he was quickly helped into one.

Without a word they climbed into a very stealthy looking shuttle and prepared for lift off. Richard noted that Laura was showing no sign of the previous night's drinking and queried this.

"My slacker husband is having my hangover for me" she laughed. Then she nodded at the screen set onto the partition wall. "Keep an eye on that" she said "you'll get the view millions of kids would kill for."

"I never wanted to be an astronaut" Richard objected. Laura looked at him like he was nuts.

"Why not?" asked Ranma, butting into the conversation.

"When other kids were building things I was devising filing systems for my bricks" Richard explained. "One year my dad built me a box cart" Richard continued with a wistful smile, "I told him that next time I would rather have the boxes."

"You are weird!" Ranma said, ever the diplomat.

"So what about you" Richard asked, "what did you want to be when you were young?"

"A man amongst men" Ranma replied, in Japanese and then in English.

"Why?" Richard asked.

"Cuz otherwise my mom was gonna cut my head off" he replied as if such things were everyday. Then they were bursting for orbit. The acceleration threatened to rip Richard's guts out of his ass and when they levelled off he was left feeling completely mixed up."

"Kami I love zero gee" Ranma intoned, unbolting himself. Then he drift-bounced his way up the compartment to go and bug the pilots. Richard spotted Nabiki shaking her head at him. She saw his interest and explained.

"Can't even tie him down."

"Just pray Kimi takes after you" Laura added and Nabiki immediately put her hands together in a mock prayer. It was the first time he had seen her taking part in the horseplay and all of a sudden he realised that in her own way she was every bit the soldier the rest of them were. She just fought in a different arena.

"I want to apologise" he said to Nabiki. "I honestly had no idea…"

"Its alright doctor" she replied, "we knew that someone like that would come sooner or later. I am just glad it was you and not Wier.

"What's wrong with Elisabeth" Richard asked.

"She's a pinko" Laura informed him, rather unkindly. "All 'save the whales' and no save the country."

"That really isn't fair" Richard disagreed. Laura looked sceptical.

"Oh come on" Laura argued, "she's what my husband would call a 'Bongo-bongo-Wishy-washy-lefty-liberal-greenpeace faggot!' but then he's a little to the right of Gengis Khan" Richard just chortled.

"Actually she surprised me" said Nabiki. "We expected her to be hostile but she acted like this was personal and she bought the file she was given hook line and sinker."

"I am afraid she isn't the only one" Richard said "even before I saw the Nemesis file I already knew what it would say." It was only after he finished that he noticed he was suddenly the centre of silent attention. "What?" he asked.

"What Nemesis file?" Nabiki asked very precisely.

"The one that I found on your desk after the 'dinner,'" he answered, starting to worry.

"There is no Nemesis file" Nabiki replied.

"Of course not, I understand" he answered

"No you don't" replied Nabiki. "There is no file because nobody has ever written one. Whatever you saw was cooked up by the shitting sab"

"Sab?"

"We have a saboteur in the base" Laura explained. "Nobody has been able to catch him in the act yet and we have really tried."

"Can't you just do the mind thingy?" Richard asked.

"Doesn't work like that" interrupted Gos, sounding peeved. "Everyone always assumes it does but it just doesn't"
"Sorry" said Richard, suddenly taken aback.

"We Cannot read minds!" Gos informed him. "psi-ops is a bit like talking. You can make the subject hear you, make his body react but you can't hear him unless he's broadcasting himself."

"So no mind reading?"

"None," Gos replied, "The only way to get close is to force a person to think out loud, or convince them to think what you want."

"If you want to know what they think you have to tell the to think it first?" Richard surmised.

"Something like that" Gos replied

"Guys we are coming up on Nemesis now" Ranma said over the coms. "You wanna send the doc up for a look?"

"Doctor" Nabiki offered and Richard's curiosity wouldn't let him refuse.

He scrambled his way upwards to the cockpit and pushed his way through the hatch only to be caught by Ranma and unceremoniously clipped to the wall. He nodded his thanks, the last thing he wanted to do now was distract the pilots. The cockpit was remarkably bare, only a few consoles and maybe a dozen switches. The pilots apparently controlled the ship with two single-handed grips each.

"Cyber systems" Ranma explained. "Real funky stuff, increases reaction time nearly tenfold." Richard nodded. And looked out of the wrap around windows. For a few moments all he could see was the vast curve of the Milky Way and then one of Mars's moons swung into view, and they appeared to be heading straight for it. Unconsciously he turned his head away slightly expecting impact. It was only when id didn't come immediately he started to work out the real size of the moon before him. It may not have been as big as even Earth's but it was still massive beyond his frame of reference. Even so it soon blotted out the rest of the view, and still they headed straight for it.

Again he was getting worried, especially when the shuttle did not slow at all from its breakneck speed. Instead it plunged straight into a crater, and through the floor of it.

Beyond was a vast cavern, illuminated by hunrdeds of lights, that in turn illuminated a vast structure under construction. It was only when Richard caught sight of the four vast engines that he finally understood what he was seeing. A huge battleship.

She was, like the rest of X-Com, all functionality and deadly purpose without concession to aethetics. Despite this the vessel was sleek and had every appearance of a hunter. Form had melded with function to produce a work of stark beauty and killer intent.

"That is Nemesis" Ranma told him.

-

"Welcome to the bridge" Nabiki told him. They were all taking a tour of the vast ship and Richard was struck speechless by the size of it. He had been aboard smaller aircraft carriers.

"The Nemesis is in fact a compromise" Nabiki continued. "Some argued for a ship that could sneak under the aliens' radar and others argued for a full scale planet buster. This is what we settled on. She has hold space for smaller stealth vessels and packs a punch that should put almost anything else to shame."

"When she's finished she'll carry four flights of interceptors, and two brace of recon craft. She will have armament to not only defend herself but also outfight most military installations we expect to meet. Her crew complement, being secretly trained as we speak, will be in excess of a thousand people. Her engines will be the largest and most powerful ever to be made by a factor well over a thousand. She will reach further and faster than nay human has ever travelled before.

"Why?" Richard asked, dreading the answer.

"Her name is Nemesis and she is revenge for the fallen," Nabiki replied.

"We are going to the bug home systems and when we get there we are going to kick some serious Alien ass" Laura said, bloodthirsty light shining from her eyes.

"But won't that just antagonise them more?" Richard queried.

"How do you figure they can get more annoyed" Ranma asked. "They already want to enslave and or kill every single one of us and turn our world into a breeding ground for mutant experiments."

"But won't they retaliate too?" Richard asked, still not believing that they would consider this.

"No war was ever won on the defensive" Nabiki said ominously. "And we need the time this represents."

"I don't understand"

"Right now the aliens that sent this expeditionary force to Mars are massing a full scale invasion force. Simply put we do not have the time or technology to build enough weapons platforms to defend our home. If they come when they plan then they will win." She fell silent for a long minute letting the news sink in.

"This is the big secret," she added, "The human race as we know it is less than a year from extinction. So we are going to launch a pre-emptive strike and buy ourselves the time we need to mount a real defence."

"Won't whoever goes out in this be vastly outnumbered and out gunned?" Richard asked.

"Yes we will" answered Ranma.

"But that has never stopped us before" Laura added. Richard looked at the people around him and suddenly realised the next truth, all of these people were going on this fool's errand. He was looking at the backbone of the ship's command staff.

"You'll all be killed," he whispered.

"Damned if we do screwed if we don't" swore Laura.

"I for one won't go quietly," Ranma told him, "When the reaper comes he'll have to fight for it."

"So this isn't about revenge?" he asked dubiously.

"Of course it is" Nabiki told him, "but it's also about keeping our light burning in the long night."

+

Laura's husband met them at the airlock and fell in beside them. His concern was plain on his face and Richard took the time to reassure him that everything was fine. But even as they stepped back into the high triangular ceilinged rooms of the Mars base's surface levels Richard's mind was racing, trying to take it all in. Maybe that was why when the others reacted he failed to.

A 'Whip-Crack' noise shattered the air and suddenly a heavy form knocked him flat. As he hot the ground the wind was knocked clear out of him. Through tearing eyes he saw the blood that covered him and traced it to the person who had knocked him down.

Lying across his body was Laura's husband, eyes forevermore staring at some point far beyond mortal sight. Richard never heard the chase, never saw the assassin caught and never cared, because here was his first friend on this base, one of his first friends ever, and he had just died so that he could keep breathing.

Hot tears ran down his face and the last shred of the unconnected accountant died with his friend.