Chapter 14

Month 96—December on Anouilh

WE’D ALWAYS KNOWN invasion of the island was a possibility. I had hoped it would be Sa’arm. Sending the girls out to repel human invaders was not an optimum use of their warrior personas. I figured it had originated with reports of the resort coming out of Cuba—still the only place we received guests from. We’d had requests from other areas, some even showing up on Papillon and asking to stay at the resort. All were directed to the resort on the larger island. Reservations came only through our Cuban agent.

But word of an island full of beautiful women had gotten out. It was inevitable that the Earth First scum would try to take them. They were a disease.

Dakota and Miss Molly had handled the situation calmly and professionally. After marching the one captured EF commando to the resort and locking him up under Ubie’s watchful eye, we called all the squads off the beach and sent out a fourth squad to do cleanup. It made sense. The girls had just killed people or witnessed it. They shouldn’t have to deal with the mess. It wasn’t like they were really soldiers.

“How can I help you, Boss?” Major Thom asked. I called him after the attack and he transported in at once. “Your transporter always gives me a strange feeling. It’s like changing trains in the London Underground. I’m afraid I can’t spend much time. We’ve got a heavy pickup schedule this week.”

“We were attacked by Earth First early this morning. Best I can tell, eighteen dead, one escaped, and one captured. We thought you might like the captured one.”

“Why make the offer to me? Don’t you want to hunt them down yourselves?”

“Not really. We aren’t an offensive force. The girls are already upset that they killed eighteen men.”

“It’s not a pleasant situation,” Thom agreed. He got the faraway look in his eye indicating he was passing the word up by way of the AI. “Can I bring a couple men in to cart the bastard away?”

“Please do,” Ubie’s voice announced over their shoulders. Inside two minutes, two Marines stepped off the transporter. They staggered for a moment before regaining their balance and looked back at the nexus. I took them to the room where Ubie had locked the prisoner. When he saw the Marines, the prisoner went berserk but was quickly restrained.

“No! Don’t let them take me! Kill me. I’ll tell you anything you want. The group is located on Tortola. There are nearly 150 men and twice that number of slave sluts. It’s all I know. Please! Please! Just kill me here. They eat people up there. Don’t give me to them.”

The pleas were for naught. The Marines dragged the prisoner to the transporter and he was gone. I shivered. I understand the principle of recycling. A dead prisoner is just protein and fats. The replicators would render the body into component elements and rebuild it into any food they wanted. It still gave me the willies to think they would eat the man. I understood the fear. Maybe they’d just space him after they got all the info they could from him.

“Teddy.” Thom placed a hand on my shoulder. I brought myself back to the present and looked at the Major. “Are you sure you want to go through with this scheme of yours? I know you’re building a ship. We have an observer outside the asteroid belt. Non-interference. Just watching. We could speed the process in one of our shipyards and send you all to a planet where you can make the rules you want. It seems like such a waste for you to do it all here. I can have a guaranteed extraction for everyone here in ten minutes.”

“Major, our resolve is firm. We just proved our resolve in defending our island,” I said. “We will have a ship in orbit and we will fight off any invader that comes for Earth. We aren’t leaving. Just let me know if you aren’t going to resolve the issue on Tortola. I think you can take care of that more neatly than we could.”

Thom nodded. “We have a department that doesn’t exist. [See Woolly Wilds and Woolly Wilds 2 by starfiend.] Wherever they go, Earth First seems to disappear.” Thom looked out across the pool to the beach where girls were still stacking the bodies. “Your prisoner was right, you know. If he goes into a recycler instead of being spaced, he’ll be on the menu tonight as lasagna. Or whatever. Your replicator works best with elements that are complementary to the purpose. It’s why you feed it from the asteroid belt to build your ship and from the grass clippings and animal byproducts for meals here. You have to get rid of those bodies. You should recycle them.”

I winced, knowing it was true and knowing it had to be done. Thom shook my hand and headed to the transport nexus. “You know, I think your nexus is out of phase with Confederacy transporters. It always makes me queasy when I come through. We could send you one of our pads just for use when you want to visit. Keep in touch, Boss.” Ubie activated the nexus and then shut it down.

“Ubie, can you arrange a transporter pad at our recycler without letting anyone else know about it? I’ll take this one down to the beach and toss the bodies onto it. You’ll take care of the rest, right?”

“Yes, Boss,” Ubie responded. “Don’t worry. No one will know.”

Using my tablet, I studied the diagram outlining a module on repelling Earth First fanatics. I couldn’t imagine that Earth First would evaporate just because aliens actually landed. If we released this module, there might be some backlash. I knew there were Earth Firsters who played the game. This module would help the trash take itself out. They were portrayed as hurting Earth’s ability to hunt and kill the dickheads. Thom sent me a message confirming the game was the motivator behind the invasion. Some EF guys had played the game and thought it was a good idea to capture the Pussy Pirates for themselves.

“Excuse me, Boss.” I looked up into the eyes of KC Cutie, my dream girl.

“Hey, Cutie. Have a seat. How can I help you?” I’d move heaven and earth for this girl. If only she knew.

“I’m feeling a little ... I suppose you don’t care about feelings, do you? I just ... I thought...”