Chapter 4

A brass sky seemed to spread nearly infinitely outward, but below were pools of every size imaginable, separated from each other by either a few yards or in some cases by inches.

Greg found himself in front of one such pool. This one was circular in shape, as all the pools within his vision appeared to be. The pool just in front of Greg was ringed with a deep blue tile, and the tiles were quite small, appearing to be but an inch in size. The spacing between them was perfect – more perfect than it had any right to be. The water within was also a deep blue in color. Greg looked deeply into the water, but he could not see the bottom of the pool. It seemed to be so deep that the water turned from dark blue to black as it stretched into infinity. This particular pool looked to be approximately thirty feet across.

A sudden swishing sound caused Greg to spin about. This one was a smaller pool, and it had developed within it a whirlpool, and the water within spun quickly, lowering in level until it drained. Looking down into the now empty and inexplicably dry pool, Greg saw that this one was only a few feet deep, and the bottom of it was flat. Greg found himself confused, as he saw no evidence of a drain, nor did he detect any outlet through which the water may have drained.

More curious now, he stepped into the empty pool, looking about for where the water that had been there only moments before might have gone. Suddenly, he felt himself dropping and in alarm Greg glanced upward to see that the top of the pool was now more than a dozen feet above him. Water quickly began to fill the pool and he became caught up within a rising whirlpool. Simultaneously, an invisible force began to pull him downward. Greg began to panic and fought to get to the surface of the spinning whirlpool.

"…up, sir!"

Greg shook his head and sat up. He was still somewhat groggy from the night before. The large and ornate bed in which he found himself was set inside of an ornate room. An exotic sword hung on the wall, on which Arabic writing was written in golden script. Additionally, he saw paintings of obviously Arabic scenery, and other unrecognizable objects adorned the walls as well. Greg looked to his left and saw a young man with a nearly full face of hair. His skin was tan in color, but his green eyes seemed out of place with the garb he was wearing.

They had resided in the palace of a rich Kuwaiti they knew only as Ahmad for nearly two weeks. During that time, they had grown out their facial hair in order to fit more easily in with men of the local population. Greg reached up to scratch his own beard and moustache, both of which still seemed to him alien and out of place upon his own face. He looked at the young man to his left with a quizzical glance, recalling only now that he had recently spoken and had to be here in his room for a reason.

"Did you say something earlier, Flory?"

"Yes, sir. Ahmed has invited us to breakfast, and Captain Higgens wants to talk to you once we're done with chow."

Greg blinked, and then he glanced quickly at his watch. Black numbers in the LCD confirmed that it was 0943, local time. He had been tired. Memorization of his new past and occupation was not an easy task.

"Peter," said Greg.

"Sir?" replied a confused Flory.

"Peter Stellano is my name. I am a former contractor from northern Italy, and you are Pedro Filando, a migrant worker from Cuba.

"Oh," said Flory, "Yes sir… uh, I mean, si, senior."

Flory's mother was Puerto Rican, so a ghost of a dialect lingered within his voice. He was also fluent in Spanish.

"And, Capt… er, uh, Mister Feuerbach wants to speak to you."

Greg smiled at Flory. Years of military discipline was difficult to overcome, and the practice of behaving as civilians toward each other, especially in light of their differences in rank, did not come easy. Part of Greg's smile was prompted by the Captain Higgins' new name. Higgins looked very German, complete with blond hair and piercing blue eyes. Moreover, since he had spent many years stationed in Germany, he knew a lot of German. So the role of Karl Feuerbach, stuffy German engineer seemed to fit him quite well. Captain Higgins was the only one of the three American soldiers in the group who did not now sport facial hair, though he wasn't beyond growing a bit of stubble on his upper lip.

Later, Greg felt stuffed, as he normally did at the end of any meal put in front of him by the servants of Ahmed. And also as usual, the massive dinner table still contained an overabundance of all kinds of food, even upon completion of the hearty breakfast. Ahmed had excused himself from the dining room, and the three soldiers sat alone at the table. Flory sat to the left of Captain Higgins, who now stared at Greg.

"The boat will set out in two days time from port," said Higgins. "I know the route the boat is to take, but for reasons of security neither you nor Pedro will be told those details."

Greg blinked. Higgins had used their made-up names without breaking stride. His hair was a bit longer now, some of it starting to intrude over the tops of his ears. Greg well knew that under normal circumstances, the Armor officer would never have worn his hair any way other than a high and tight, the sides shaved nearly to the skin. But these were not normal circumstances.

Higgins continued, "At every port call, we will meet pre-arranged contacts who will provide necessary information to us and brief us as necessary. I will say that our final port of call is to be on the Eastern seaboard of CONUS. I don't think I need to remind you that nearly all of the US is under enemy occupation. Their ISR assets are clearly on a level far advanced beyond anything we have seen, and we are maintaining nearly total radio and computer silence."

"What about the internet?" interrupted Greg.

Higgins looked mildly annoyed at the interruption, but then he continued, "Reports that I've got on that is that we've tried that and met with limited success. The enemy has well-trained hackers, and they've hired native programmers and internet geeks to root out any internet traffic perceived to be subversive to their occupation efforts. In short, don't worry about it."

Higgins glanced at Flory, who seemed to be taking it all in.

One concern nagging at Greg's mind was the hospitality of the Kuwaitis. Although they were still mostly grateful for the American invasion that had freed them from Saddam, they had to know that Washington DC now lay in smoldering ruin and the United States itself lay under occupation from a greater power. Ahmed seemed friendly enough, but for how long would such friendliness last, especially if these invaders were so powerful and skilled? He shook his head. Lieutenant Colonel Bertha and his staff had to have thought the whole thing through, so who was he to worry over things like that.

The ride to the docks went without incident. The pickup truck in which Greg was riding had stopped but once, and Kuwaiti soldiers had peered in, plainly recognized that Greg and a couple of his cohorts were not Arabic, and allowed them to continue their trek. Peering around, Greg noticed no surprising changes in the landscape of Kuwait City as a whole. Kuwaitis bustled about as they always had. Mercedes and other expensive vehicles jockeyed for position on the road as the wealthier put their stamp on the face of the public. The only hint of anything out of the normal routine was the occasional stormtroopers intermixed with Kuwaiti soldiers. There weren't many of those, but those who were present were never alone. There were usually two to six of them together. Then there were the strange-looking symbols on flags in the place of where Kuwaiti flags once flew. Other than that, Greg could hardly tell the place had changed at all.

As the truck jilted to a stop, Greg filed off of the back of the pickup truck with the others. He spotted several boats of varying shapes and sizes. None of the boats were military craft, and none of them appeared to be much more than 200 feet long. The group was herded toward what appeared to be a much-used trawler, roughly 85 feet in length. One the back was something painted in Aramaic, so Greg could only guess at the vessel's name. The boat was nondescript in nature and actually pretty dingy. It would attract little in the way of attention, either from the invaders or pirates.

As they filed onto the boat, the men descended a ladder into the lower cabin. Therein, a man in a US Naval uniform sat in a chair with a headset on, staring at a computer monitor. From the man's appearance, he was either a chief petty officer or an officer. The man swiveled his chair about and stood up. Greg could now see the silver oak leaves on his collar.

He began to open his mouth when a voice from behind him said, "Commander Nash, it's good to see you again."

Greg turned his head and saw a scruffy looking man in Arab garb with dark facial hair interlaced with steel gray. While he didn't look the part of a battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Bertha's voice was unmistakable.

"Ron, it's good to see you again too," replied the Naval officer.

The gaze of Lieutenant Colonel Bertha shifted to the equipment that Commander Nash had been manning.

"So that's what we're reduced to. What's the latest?"

Commander Nash looked to the shortwave radio set and replied, "Most of the joint chiefs were killed, but a couple survived here and there. The CINCs are underground now – those who are left, constantly on the move. Much of what is left of the CONUS forces are underground too, blending in with the population."

"Civilian leadership?"

"All but gone, I'm afraid. The Imperials killed nearly all of them in the initial strike, including state leadership. Strange thing is … bunch of them were killed before the ships started blasting targets from orbit."

"How?"

"Nobody's really sure, but we think they were targeted assassinations."

"Methodical bastards," murmured Lieutenant Colonel Bertha, shaking his head.

Greg knew what his commander was thinking. This enemy had been watching them for some time before the invasion, and they had to have had agents and assassins in place, ready to strike when the time was right. His boss introduced him and the others to the Naval commander. They were told to make themselves comfortable – it would be a long voyage.

As Greg and his counterparts were dismissed, Greg returned to the weather deck. The boat had been underway for about an hour, and he could see Kuwait City shrinking behind him. Afternoon was giving way to evening, and the heat of the day was slowly drifting into space. That thought prompted Greg to shift his gaze skyward. No stars were yet visible, but he knew that once they were that not all of the bright dots in the night were stars. Some were starships. None were friendly.

The throbbing of the boat's engine had assisted Greg in sleeping. He found that he slept soundly with that engine running, its vibrations reverberating throughout the boat. With curiosity he had looked at the straps on his rack. His was the top of three racks, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what purpose such straps served. Their purpose became all too evident once the boat entered the Arabian Sea.

The Persian Gulf had been somewhat calm, but now the boat entered a sea less friendly to land lovers. In the middle of the night, Greg had nearly been hurled from his rack, saving himself from becoming close and personal with the opposite bulkhead only by maintaining an iron grip on one of the overhead pipes. In the process of doing so, he had nearly cracked his head in half on one of those pipes. Those mysterious straps now seemed ripe with purpose, and he used them to strap himself securely into his rack. While the boat tossed no less, Greg stayed firmly in-place.

The boat made plenty of stops, along its month-long voyage, but at no time did the Americans leave its relative safety. Greg had spent nearly three days violently sea sick, but his sole comfort was knowing that others shared that fate. The Navy officer seemed somewhat smug at seeing his Army counterparts suffering such effects, but to his credit he never said anything.

Everyone was downright ripe with odor, as the boat sported only one shower, and it was rarely used. Fresh water at sea was a scarce commodity on a boat that small. One break was a cool rain shower off the coast of Africa. The sea was not too threatening, so most of the men took turns bathing in the rain, topside. Toward the end of the third week, Greg was seriously wondering if land truly existed, surmising that perhaps the invaders had blasted everything but the ocean itself to smithereens.

Only twice during the voyage did Greg spot aircraft. One was clearly a civilian airplane, and the other was clearly not anything he had before seen. It wasn't a bowtie aircraft, like the one that had attacked his unit in the desert, but it also wasn't like anything he could identify. Either way, whatever was piloting it seemed to pay no attention to the boat.

Greg shifted in his rack. Something was amiss, but he couldn't nail down what it was. It was dark, but then the berthing area generally was, since all shifts slept here. Silence. That was it. Everything was quiet. Something else too – stillness. The boat wasn't being tossed about by waves. Greg peeled himself from his rack and slowly descended to the deck. He dressed and climbed the ladder to the main cabin. Through a portal, Greg could see land. The boat was docked, but where? Captain Higgens chose that time to enter the main cabin and look at Greg.

"Filando, go get your gear."

Greg was temporarily confused, but then he remembered his fake name. He turned to retrieve his barracks bag. Greg soon learned that they were in Fort Lauderdale. The invader presence was much more prominent here than it had been in Kuwait City. Next to one of the docked cruise ships, Greg saw a strange structure around which stormtroopers were milling about. The structure reminded Greg somewhat of an ancient fort, complete with gun towers ringing it.

Within the confines of the fort, Greg spotted a couple of two-legged armored walkers. The Americans, still dressed in Arabic garb, filed into a white van and headed into the city. They were stopped at two checkpoints, manned by stormtroopers. Neither location appeared to be interested in detaining anyone, and the group was allowed to continue on its way.

The house seemed ordinary for the most part, though the yard was gated. As the men entered the home, Greg saw that it was well-furnished. He was allowed to take a shower and change into civilian clothes. It felt great to shave off his beard, but he left his moustache in place. An all-American lunch added to his refreshment, and Greg attacked his hamburger with ferocity. He was sure that a Coke had never tasted so good. Greg now sported dark slacks and a polo shirt. As he and his cohorts finished their meal, they retired to a room Greg had not before noticed. He wasn't quite sure of how it had escaped his notice, but the entrance to the room didn't appear to have been a door. It was then that he noticed that a bookcase had been slid to the side. The inside of this new room was more akin to a briefing room, complete with an overhead projector linked to a laptop computer.

"So basically, we're looking at a low-level insurgency against the Empire," said Lieutenant Colonel Bertha.

The man with the black goatee nodded somberly. Greg felt his head swimming with the plethora of information still newly crammed within his mind. A galactic empire spanning literally millions of star systems, and now expanding into an entirely different galaxy – incredible! How could they hope to offer any form of resistance to so vast and overwhelming a force?

Insurgencies had tied up superior military forces before, but nothing on a scale such as this had ever been even imagined. The men at this table seemed determined to do just that, and they had to know what level of opposition they faced. The briefing told of vast star fleets of millions of warships, apparently capable of rending entire planets lifeless. What if this Empire decided Earth was no longer worth occupying and instead decided to render it lifeless? Lieutenant Colonel Bertha informed the gathered party that he would give further instructions the following day.

Greg looked at the night sky of Fort Lauderdale. The evening was warm and humid, and one could hardly see that anything was any different than it had been since this city was first established as a major American city. Only bits and pieces here and there bespoke of Imperial occupation, but even that seemed relatively low-key. The Imperials seemed little interested in changing the status quo, so long as resistance to their rule was kept to a low roar. Plans were being set into motion, and Greg was privy to but a small portion. How long would the status quo remain in place?