Nina wrapped her legs around him and pulled tight, accepting what he gave even as his final act felt more an assault than love.
Their bodies grew still.
She breathed hard…then softer. His heart thumped against her chest. She could feel it through the sweat.
Trevor was coming back.
Her Trevor.
17. Whispers
Trevor walked the exterior of the otherworldly estate listening to alien-sounding chirps from some manner of bird as it announced the arrival of morning. With a bounce in his step, he passed a sentry, patting the man on the shoulder who responded, "Cold out today, sir."
"Not as cold as it is for those dead Geryons, is it, Morris?"
"No, sir!" the soldier smiled.
Trevor found satisfaction in the man's spirit. Here they were out in the wilderness far from safety and if another Geryon battleship sailed over the horizon they would stand no chance.
Yet Morris felt a sense of invincibility. Trevor had led them to victory over a superior enemy, as he had done many times on his world. How? He knew part of that came from the dark spot of his heart, the part that bubbled to the surface last night with the Major.
At the same time, his strength also came from the righteousness of his cause. Standing on the moral high ground gave him a free hand. No tactic could be too brutal, too nasty for the invading scum. Indeed, the more brutal the blow the more effective; a frightened enemy is more easily defeated. Certainly it would frighten the Geryons to find one of their powerful Battleships obliterated by a handful of humans.
He came upon Reverend Johnny near the front gate staring into the distance with binoculars. On the lake, strands of smoke still smoldered from the destroyed dirigible, but no fires and apparently no sign of Geryon survivors.
"Good morning, sunshine," Trevor greeted lightheartedly.
"I see you have pulled yourself out of bed, Mr. Stone. I feared you might stay there all day," Johnny responded without lowering his binoculars.
That annoyed Trevor. He was, after all, the Emperor. Johnny should damn well turn around and Stop it.
Trevor let it go, instead asking, "What do you mean? It’s bright and early."
"I figured you would be loath to leave behind the warmth you found there."
Trevor played coy, "What are you talking about?"
"My dear Mr. Stone, you and the Major-how should I put this within the bounds of good taste? — you and the Major were quite… enthusiastic. Yes. The acoustics of the empty mansion and the cavern into which it is built are quite conductive."
Trevor pinched his nose and grimaced. "Oh. Um. Yeah well…"
Johnny finally pulled away the binoculars and looked at his friend. "Fear not, for I have found a more interesting sight to judge this morning." He pointed toward the mountainside. "There. Behold a curious sight. Perhaps the answers you think are here can be gleaned from the events under our very noses."
Trevor pulled his own field glasses from a pouch on his belt and followed Johnny’s direction to a strip of thin woodlands between destroyed cottages. There he saw a common hostile nicknamed a Rat-Thing, essentially a car-sized rodent with needle-like tufts of fur.
"Not sure what the big deal is, I've seen plenty of these-wait a second. I’ll be damned."
Trevor spied a pack of predators hunting the Rat-Thing. Four Gray Wolves emerged from the debris of the ruined homes.
Johnny and Stone observed the wolves stalk and attack their target. The horrid beast squealed and scampered in an attempt to flee, but the wolves ripped at its hind legs until it fell.
"Amazing," Trevor whispered.
Johnny stopped watching. He did not need to see the tearing and shredding of the Rat-Thing’s hide. Stone, on the other hand, stood hypnotized by the brutal and efficient pack.
"I imagine wolves would attack any creature if promised a good breakfast," Johnny said.
"After all these years, they've learned that some of the invaders are good eats. Still, makes me think about this whole thing. Maybe it’s our entire environment. That might explain why more than just alien armies came to our world. Or, I guess, ‘worlds.’ Maybe it explains why predator and prey have come here. To show their-what? — superiority?"
"Or maybe," Johnny suggested, "the wolves are just hungry."
Trevor smiled. "Maybe so."
– The extraction flight arrived mid-morning and evacuated the remaining team members with no interruption, no incident. The Skippers flew over the mountains and plains under a sky that was as clear as the day before.
Nina napped next to Trevor in the passenger compartment. He had missed as much sleep as she had but he felt invigorated, not exhausted. He spent the return flight gazing out the side portal watching the landscape go by.
For every sight that accentuated the difference between this Earth and his, there were a dozen that drove home the similarities.
Yes, the architecture of the homes seemed a warped version of what he knew. Instead of open fields, the developers of this Earth preferred mountains and hills from which sprouted neighborhoods, sometimes on terraced levels, the same type of deigns he had noticed at the lake. Furthermore, the few roads he spied from the sky seemed wider than those back home.
Such subtleties meant little. If he closed his eyes, he could see children playing in the fields that were marked with lines for some sport or another; he could hear the ringing of worship bells in the triangular steeples of the churches; he could hear families gathering in their homes for the evening meal.
When he opened those eyes again he saw the devastation. Fields of bomb craters, toppled steeples, the charred remains of burned homes, the occupants either dead or enslaved.
Yes, the more tiny differences he found the more he saw similarities. The more he grew convinced that this Earth needed him.
– Trevor and his team returned to Thebes that afternoon. Nothing much happened the rest of the day. Nina disappeared to write reports and as the day went on Trevor's exhilaration turned to exhaustion as fighting alien blimps and shapely Majors finally got the better of him. He did not see her that night as he collapsed sound asleep in the apartment he shared with Johnny.
However, the next morning she knocked frantically on their door.
"We have to appear before The Committee."
He would have suspected that The Committee wanted to pin a medal on him for winning such an unlikely victory. However, the grumpy expression on her face suggested otherwise.
"What is it?"
She spat, "Our fearless leaders are not happy about our expedition."
Reverend Johnny broke in, "Not happy? Why, you would think they would be ringing bells of celebration after the sound pummeling we delivered unto-"
"What is their problem?" Trevor interrupted his friend’s sermon.
"I don’t know. I just know they want to see us."
Johnny volunteered, "Do not fear, Major. We will show them the error of their ways."
"Actually, Reverend," Forest tried to tell him delicately. "They just want to see the officers involved."
Before Johnny could be offended Trevor consoled, "Don’t sweat it. Why don’t you do me the favor of reviewing the city’s defenses. I’d like to know what we’ve got to work with."
Johnny huffed. "Very well."
Trevor followed the Major to the first floor where they met ground transportation to the Ops Center.
They traversed the city under a silky gray quilt of clouds blanketing the morning sky. No blue; no beams of sun, just a steady dull light. However, those clouds trapped enough heat to keep the temperature from plummeting too far. It actually felt slightly warmer than Trevor would expect for a mid-February day, perhaps the tenth or so.
He had lived in Thebes for more than two weeks with the exception of that night at the lake. Trevor’s time inside the walls-or what remained of the walls-had been spent mainly training soldiers from the Third Legion.