Charlie walked over to Maria and said something in her ear. She watched him walk away with a genuine look of sorrow, holding out an arm toward him, before letting it drop.
As Charlie passed him, Gregor held out his hand. “Good luck.”
Charlie stopped. Looked into Gregor’s eyes, firmly shook his hand and slowly nodded.
Chapter 35
CHARLIE AND DENVER sprinted around the farm facility’s perimeter, keeping to the shadows. Through the trees, they saw the one called Alex stalling a couple of croatoans by the shuttle. They were expecting the next load of meat and root and weren’t happy about the delay.
“It’s coming,” Alex said, raising her voice and talking slowly as though that would get through to the increasingly agitated croatoan. It raised it hand to the shuttle and nodded its head indicating that it needed loading.
Charlie clutched the bomb case to his chest and duck walked to the edge of what Gregor had told him was the meat processing building. For a moment, Charlie doubted himself, wondered if this wasn’t some sick, elaborate plan on Gregor’s part, but even if it was, it still represented an opportunity to get on that shuttle. Even if he had to kill every last alien and fly the damned thing up there himself.
Denver took a quick glance around the edge of the building. “We’re clear,” he said, his body pressed against the building, the alien rifle in his hands across his chest. “They’ve gone back to the shuttle. Alex is making her way to the other side of the unit. Are you really sure this is the only way?” Denver asked, looking directly into Charlie’s eyes.
“You know it is.” It really wasn’t the time to get into another discussion. He understood his son’s hesitance, but this was personal. He wanted to do this. Needed to do this. So much had happened since the day the aliens rose out of the ground, so many people close to him were cruelly killed as nothing more than inconvenient insects.
A shadow passed overhead, sucking the light away from the farm compound, bringing with it a chill and a stirring of wind. The new alien craft made the mother ship look like a spec in comparison.
He shook his head and mumbled, “What if it’s not enough?”
“What do you mean?”
“The bomb. I trust Mike and Mai implicitly. They’re great at what they do, but looking at the size of that thing. With the mother ship conjoined to its underside like that, even with the bomb and the EMP, will it even scratch the surface of this new thing?”
“Maybe it doesn’t even have to. Maybe by taking out the mother ship and its anti-grav engines, gravity will do the rest and pull that damned thing down.”
Charlie pressed himself closer to the wall of the meat-processing unit as the massive terraforming ship stopped. It had turned so that the long straight section pointed west. Following the line of the ship brought Charlie’s vision to the shuttle.
There wasn’t really any longer to delay things. Through the open mud-covered square, Charlie saw Gregor and the others spread around like small dark lumps on the perimeter of the farm. The ‘livestock’ no longer wandered the fields, having been brought in by Alex earlier.
The thought of those poor souls steeled Charlie’s resolve. How could he let the enslavement of his race like that go unpunished? Though it did occur to him that his actions would be like a bull assaulting humanity for farming cows.
He didn’t think the aliens were evil—certainly no more evil than humans—they just thought humanity were nothing more than tools, cheap labor, and a source of food.
Charlie waited for a count of twenty.
When no croatoans appeared in the square from any of the units or the shuttle, he took one last look up at the terraform ship as though it were watching his every moment. Then he slid past his son and around the side of the building. He could see Vlad and Alex standing outside by the ramp.
Inside would be the empty container—if Gregor and Layla had stuck to what was agreed. That they were waiting in hiding, preparing for the distraction, gave him some confidence, but the icy energy of anxiety still prickled at his nerves.
Denver followed behind, his steps deliberate and quiet. The rear of the shuttle was open and pointed thirty or so degrees away from the ramp that led into the unit. As agreed, when he was within a few feet of Alex and Vlad, he whistled quietly and then ducked onto his haunches, close to the front wall.
For a moment neither of Gregor’s colleagues moved. But then, Vlad mumbled something, nodded and headed inside. Alex took off and moved toward the shuttle. The distraction he needed to go inside. When she was completely obscured from sight, he heard her voice rise as she set about arguing with the aliens.
A quick sprint later and Charlie, with Denver right behind him, found himself inside. The smell made him want to gag. Even in the darkness he could see the terrible machines that made food from people. Large metallic boxes where the people were ground up, their bones crushed and liquidized.
He was instantly reminded of the movie Soylent Green and his stomach turned.
Wide conveyor belts, now still, told him of their levels of production. People ground down to their constituent parts, nothing more than fat, protein and carbs, all mixed together into a paste.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Denver whispered to Vlad. “You fucking traitor. How could you work here of all places, treating your fellow man and woman like nothing more than meat.”
“I’m beyond your outrage,” Vlad said, pulling them further into the building. “So you might as well just shut up and stick to the plan. There’s a breathing mask and oxygen tank inside. Along with the supplies of meat and root. I had to guess your weight, including the bomb, to load this properly.” Vlad looked Charlie up and down. “You’re smaller than the myth that precedes you. We might be a few kilos off.”
“I don’t care, as long as that shuttle gets into the mother ship.”
Vlad shrugged, appearing as disinterested in this as though it were just another day at the human-meat factory. Charlie didn’t hide his disdain as he looked into the container. There was a small space provided between the silver, foil-wrapped, containers.
The mask lay to one side, a pipe connecting to a tank hidden beneath the packages. Vlad looked up, “Get in now, they’re coming. You hide,” he said pointing to Denver.
Glancing back, Charlie saw Alex remonstrating with the aliens as she walked back toward the building. Charlie dove into the container, hurriedly placing the mask on his face and placing the bomb across his stomach.
Denver leaned over and extended his right hand. Charlie grabbed it and squeezed. He noticed his son blink away a tear. “You go,” Charlie said. “Remember I love you, always. Never give in. Remember what I taught you, and save as many as you can. Now go!”
He wouldn’t let go, just stared down at Charlie shaking his head. Vlad displayed a surprising strength as he wrapped his scrawny arms around Denver’s shoulders, pulling him away into the shadow.
“I love you,” Denver said as hunched down in the shadows beyond the unit’s opening. Charlie nodded and smiled, doing all he could to stop himself from jumping out of the container, but the world was bigger than him. The stakes were greater than his own personal losses.
The time was now.
He slumped into the hole, fixing the oxygen mask over his face. As soon as they were in the shuttle, it’d pressurize to the croatoan atmosphere. It would take about fifteen minutes to get to the mother ship. He hoped that the oxygen tank Vlad had arranged contained enough air.
With a solid metallic clang, Vlad slammed the lid down on the container and locked the latches down on either side. It felt like the underground shelters he first used after the initial invasion. Too tight, too dark, but he was used to it. He just had to relax, control his breathing to avoid using up all the air and wait until the shuttle was in place within the ship.