I'm flying again. It's been so long. Not since...
Well, it doesn't matter when. It only matters that when I pull back on the stick I sink into my seat, and when I push forward I float up from it. I'm soaring around and between the clouds, diving into and falling through them like a sparrow. Elation pulses through my body as a physical sensation.
I'm on the ground now, and something is wrong. I'm walking through the woods. Someone is walking behind me. Vultures are circling in the distance ahead. I turn to the person behind me, and it seems only natural that Sydney is there. I haven't seen her in years, but it seems entirely right that she's here. I'm about to speak to her when I glance back at the vultures and find I'm much closer to the stand of trees they're circling.
When I look back it's Claire behind me. This does seem strange. I haven't seen her since we broke up, and that wasn't on the best of terms. Her presence confuses me and I want to demand an explanation of her, but my mouth won't work.
Closer now, and the vultures are almost overhead. I realize now that the stand of trees surrounds a clearing. I push into the woods and then turn back to ask for my explanation. It should surprise me to find Becki there now, I know that, but it doesn't. Instead of talking I try to reach out to her, but try as I might I can never reach quite far enough.
I stumble out into the open space. Becki is gone, and before me lies Lenka Leannan. She is face up in a shadow that has no cause, as though night has fallen in only that one spot. The grass around her is bright red with her blood and more spills from a dozen blackened wounds. It should be startling, but it's horrifyingly familiar. Panic is boiling up inside of me. I try to rush to her, but as with Becki she is always just that far away.
Then pain explodes in the right side of my head.
"What is Terra Group?" bellowed a voice both uncomfortably close and uncomfortably loud. I forced my eyes open but all I could make out was a dark shape looming before me. The dark shape swung and the pain came again.
"What is Terra Group?" My head felt like it would rip in two of its own accord, but the pain was quickly clearing the cobwebs and bringing clarity with it. I blinked a couple times and my eyes finally focused. Wells. Why did I expect that looming darkness to be anyone else?
The darkness must have been more sensed than seen. Although the room was lit only by a small bit of sunlight streaming in through the cracked boards covering the one window, Wells's obscenely cheerful tourist shirt made him easily the bright center of the universe - or at least the room.
He swung again. I tried to throw my arm up in a block, but too late I found that my wrists were bound one to the other behind my back. The combined momentum of my sudden move and Wells's fist connecting with my head toppled over the chair I was sitting on and sent me crashing to the sandy floor. I was just as happy with the floor, really. The chair was a wood and metal contraption several sizes too small. Wells must have done his furniture shopping at the local elementary school.
"What is Terra Group?" I'd heard the question before, but only this time did I understand it. Did he think I would answer? I barely knew myself. Terra Group was a jumble of faces, flashes of moments. Fear, anger, conflict, acceptance, warmth, love. How could I ever explain it?
Wells's foot, clad in a very casual loafer, lashed out and slammed into my stomach. All the air rushed out of my lungs and my stomach tried to empty itself of contents that weren't there. Pain rippled throughout my body, all the worse for its not coming from my head. I was used to that. I reached out to the Force to steady myself-
And it wasn't there. It wasn't like the earliest days of my training, when I could feel it but couldn't quite touch it. The Force had simply ceased to exist. I could feel no life, no people, none of the comfortable assurance that life continued that it normally brought to me. I could not even feel Wells a foot away despite his obvious boiling rage. It was a feeling of unequaled loneliness…and terror.
"C'mon, traitor! I don't have time for you to play hero!" He jerked me up from the ground, righted the chair, and shoved me back on to it. He stalked across the room and snatched a water bottle off of a long workbench that sat below the boarded window. While he was busy taking a long drink I got my first chance to look myself over. My shirt was missing and blood - both dried and fresh - smeared my chest. My jeans were filthy and torn, and had a light blood coating of their own. When I tried to move my face I could feel that it, too, was caked in blood and who knew what else. Fire crawled across my back where it had scraped against the chair, and though I couldn't tell for sure I strongly suspected there was an open wound on the back of my head.
This was not a great way to start a day.
Wells turned back to me and gave me a smile that would be patient and accommodating if it weren't so tinged with bile. "Like some water?" he asked. He took a plastic cup from the bench and brought it over to me. With a grin I should probably have feared he raised it to my lips, and I took a greedy gulp.
It was salt water. I spit some of it right back out on him - small comfort - but had already swallowed most of it. It scratched and clawed its way down the back of my throat, but the shock of it further cleared my head. I glared up at him with all the anger I could muster, but all he did was laugh.
“Well, I was hoping for helpful, but pissed off works too.” I wanted nothing more than to beat the gleeful smirk right off his face. “Now that I’ve got your attention, I’ll ask you again: What is Terra Group? Who are these people you work for now? What can they possibly have done to make you turn your back on your country?”
”You’re…last person…explain it to,” I said, choking out the words in fits and starts.
“Oh come on! We go way back! You can tell me! Really, it must have been something pretty awesome, right? I always knew you were mediocre but I never once thought you’d become a traitor.”
“You …keep calling me that.” I tried to sit up straighter but only managed to scrape my back against the back of the chair again, bringing a fresh flash of pain. I tried turning the grimace into a defiant sneer. “I do more for our country in a single day than you’ll do in your whole lifetime.”
The smile remained pasted to Wells’s face, but it lost a lot of its luster around his eyes. Direct hit. He stalked slowly around behind me, and I lost sight of him. “Oh, is that so?” Something cool and wet splashed on my head and the down my back a split second before a searing pain nearly blinded me. I did all I could to hold the pain in as the salt water ravaged the wounds across my back and on my head, but a small cry escaped me completely against my will.
“Well maybe we’ll just come back to that one later. So how’s your buddy doing?” he said, switching into a deceptively conversational tone. “You know, the one with the body? What’s her name again?”
”Sydney…”
“Yeah, that’s her! Man was she hot! What’s she up to these days?” My only response was a glare. He knew we hadn’t spoken in years. “Oh that’s right! She won’t have anything to do with you anymore. Man, I’m sorry to bring up such a painful memory. It’s really too bad you couldn’t get her to testify at that lovely hearing,” he poured more of the water on the back of my head, “you arranged for me.”
I tried again to reach the Force. I desperately wanted out of the handcuffs at that moment, but there was still nothing there. “If I ever find out what you said to her…”
“Big threats from a guy in chains,” he sneered. “She just came to realize that you weren’t looking out for her best interests. Mine wasn’t the only future at stake, you know. Pity… If you’d realized it back then you might could’ve saved something. We both know you wanted her.”
“What do you want, Wells? You’re starting to bore me,” I said. It was a pretty stupid question, I admit, but I was starting to lose interest fast. It was a good two minutes since he’d last hit me or poured something painful into my wounds.
He rounded on me and from the hatred in his eyes I could tell the fake conciliatory attitude was getting old for him, too. “To see you rot for the rest of your life. To come visit you at Thanksgiving and Christmas and laugh while you sit all alone in a 6x6 cell. I want to see how you enjoy being someone’s bitch in Leavenworth. I want to see you sitting all alone, year after miserable year, with everything you ever cared about gone, while you slowly realize just how long the rest of your life will be. I want to give you everything you tried to give me.”
“I never-“
“The hell you didn’t! What did you think would happen? Huh? They’d just take my commission and be done with me? With the shit you accused me of I could have been in for five years, and come out to nothing afterwards!
“You were such a Cub Scout. You just couldn’t leave well enough alone. Always had to be the hero. Always sticking your nose into things where it didn’t belong. Especially when it came to some girl you wanted. You had good taste, I’ll give you that. Hey, speaking of which, who was your little girlfriend in Paris? She looked like fun. Very enthusiastic.”
Oh shit. I looked up at him without really deciding to. As soon as he started laughing I knew I’d given him exactly the confirmation I was trying to keep to myself.
“Maybe you could introduce me to her someday. Is she part of your Terra Group, too? Maybe she’d help me out.”
”She wouldn’t even stop to scrape you off her shoe, Wells.”
“She was making out with you, Cochran. Says something for her taste right there.” He paused for a second and switched subjects. “So, tell me what you know about this thing we’re after. Some kind of energy barrier?”
So now we’re getting down to business. I just started blankly at him.
“Come on, I know we’re after the same thing. You, me, and the whole rest of the world.”
“If you know so much why are you asking me about it?” I needled.
“Because I know who’s after it. The Russians, the Iraqis, the Israelis, North Korea… All the major players, and most of the minor ones, too. Except there’s one group after it that doesn’t seem to represent anyone, and they know more about this thing than anyone. One of their agents was even working with me on this a while back, but she took off before I could get anything out of her.” He stopped and smiled, and it occurred to me that he was the only person I ever knew who could look dreamy and leer all at the same time. “Well, nothing mission-related, anyway. She had other talents.”
She? I had a very bad feeling about this.
“Anyway,” he continued, “I think you’re on the same side she was. Neither one of you fits into this in any way that makes sense. You’re a common thief and a traitor, and she was just weird as hell sometimes. But you’ve got friends, too. The girl in Paris, and another pair on the other side of the river. All those people in the alley last night. And she was there, too, wasn’t she?” I didn’t answer him. “So, you still haven’t answered my question. What is Terra Group?”
“Beats me,” I lied. “Where did you hear that?”
“Your friend talks in her sleep. Now quit wasting my time. Who do you work for now? What’s their mission?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
”You might be surprised what I’d believe these days. I never thought you would knock an Air Force pilot unconscious and steal a $16 million plane, but you did. I never thought I would actually get to bring you in to go to prison for the rest of your life – as much as I always hoped I would – but now I am. So there’s not much that seems impossible anymore. Even amazing tales about a device that would make all of America immune to attack.”
“Someone’s got a great imagination,” I said.
“You know, a year ago I would have thought so, but not anymore. I think it exists, and I think you’ve got the inside track on it. So you’re going to help me get it.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because you don’t have a choice, really. As it stands right now, you’re facing federal charges of assault, grand theft fighter, destruction of federal property, and we can probably tack on treason if you committed any acts of war with that F-16. You will go to jail for the rest of your life.”
Yeah, that would pretty much suck.
“But I’ve got a deal for you, and listen up ‘cause this is way more than you deserve. If you help me – and I mean I go home with this force field thing – you get an unconditional pardon. You haven’t seen your parents in what? A year and a half? You help me with this and you can go home, free and clear. You even get your commission back, if you want it. You can pick your career up right where it ended. Hell, you’d probably go right to a fighter squadron – no one doubts you can fly them anymore.”
Go home? Walk the streets without looking over my shoulder constantly? The mission in Atlanta a few months back frayed my nerves, but what Wells offered was an end to all that. An end to the fear, the homesickness, the dull ache for my family. I could walk away from Terra Group, from all the weird things I’d seen and done over the last year. Live a normal life unbothered by the wider galaxy and its problems.
“It gets even better,” Wells was saying. “We want to know what this Terra Group is, and we want to keep an eye on what they’re up to. If they have access to anything else like this shield we want to know about it. If you’ll help me get the shield and keep working for us inside Terra Group, you get the pardon and your commission reactivated at the rank of, say, Colonel. Plus full back pay at that rank back to the date you were discharged. That’s what, three years or so?
“Think about this very carefully, Cochran. Don’t screw this up the way you do everything else. You will never get this offer again. Keep doing the work you’re doing, if you like, but you can come and go in the US as you please. This is a chance to be more for your country than you could ever have been before. We haven’t always gotten along but I never doubted your dedication to your country. Prove everyone wrong about you.”
I wanted to do it. Badly. I could do my job in TG and still give my home country a little extra help on the side. What harm could it do? Taking my vacations at home, with my parents, breathing the warm Texas air that was so strangely rejuvenating for me. And if the alternative was federal prison…
But while the offer had included a pardon for me, it said nothing about amnesty for anyone else. There were other Americans on the team whose names weren’t known to the government. If their names were known Wells would have used them against me. What would they do with the information I passed to them? What would happen to the others once their identities were known? I could face prison for what I had done, but not the others. Kristy, Emily, Arrek & Sylvana. Becki. What would become of them? I could never consign beautiful, extraordinary Becki to life in a cell, her future fading away into nothing, no matter what it cost me. My life even; certainly not the temporary discomfort of my life as it was. The risk was too great. I promised to protect her. All of them. No, if anyone was going to prison, it was me.
“Go to hell, Wells.”
His eyes nearly came out of his head. “What did you say?”
“You heard me, asshole.” I gathered up all my anger and the hatred of Wells that had been building for years. “I’ll die before I sell my friends out to you, you son of a bitch! You can take your offer straight to hell.”
I felt his surprise; he had been certain I would accept. Sorry, Wells, not everyone is like you. “How stupid are you-“
Wait a minute. I felt his surprise. I stopped listening to him, and reached out for him with my less traditional sense. It was muted, as though just a slow trickle was passing through a dam, but it was definitely there. His surprise and anger, bright burning hatred, and indignance were apparent. Beneath those was a smug satisfaction. He was glad I turned him down.
“This is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done in a long history of doing stupid things,” he was saying. The he stopped for a moment and seemed to collect his thoughts. “Just as well – I’ll still get to enjoy visiting you at the holidays in your new home. Your ride home will be along in just a little bit. I’m sorry I can’t take you back myself, but I still have a mission to complete.”
“You couldn’t find your ass in the dark with both hands,” I said. “You’ll never find your prize without a lot of help.” My contact with the Force was getting stronger, but I still could do nothing more than feel.
“You’re not the only help out there. I’m sure not all your friends are as stupid and stubborn as you. One of them will see reason. Oh yes, your friend from Paris. I imagine she could be very helpful. Your girl friends are always so much fun to work with. And you won’t be around to screw it up this time! Yeah, I think she’ll give me everything I need.”
Somewhere during his speech, the dam broke. “You will touch her – or any of them – over my dead body.”
He laughed hard. “And how are you going to stop me?” he asked.
I stood and brought my arms around in front of me to show him the handcuff chain, broken by the Force, that no longer bound my wrists. “Any way I want to.” I threw him across the room with the Force. I spotted my lightsaber on the workbench with my comlink, blaster, and shirt, and called it to my hand. Just as Wells stood up again I ignited the blade and the long, low room was lit a brilliant blue. His pistol appeared from behind his back and snapped off several rounds in quick succession. Each bounced harmlessly off my blade.
“You’re not leaving,” he growled. He seemed to think his position in front of the room’s only door was a deterrent.
“Try and stop me,” I replied. It could only have been blind, impotent rage that made him charge me at that moment. I sidestepped and slammed the hilt of my lightsaber into his spine as he passed. He let out a gasp of pain before he tripped over the chair he’d held me in and both went to the floor in a tangle.
The ceiling barely three inches over my head was composed of solid wooden beams and almost as much dirt as the floor. A quick pass with the lightsaber brought an avalanche of dust and debris down directly on top of Wells. I could neither tell nor care if he was still alive. “All too easy,” I said to the sand floating in the air. Moments later I was out the door and into the bright sun.