Chapter Two

Gray watched Warner walk down the hall to the preparation area. He’d ordered Warner to prepare the suits for their journey. Space travel was not yet as carefree as the lunar and Martian tourism spots on the hologram would have it.

“How is everything here?” he asked Linda.

She looked up at him in surprise from her workstation. She didn’t know I’d stayed here, he thought.

“It’s been rough Gray,” she said as she leaned back in her chair. Her hair was longer than the last time he’d seen it. It looked good. “The people in the city are coasting by as if nothing has happened.”

“They don’t know anything has happened,” he replied. “We haven’t told them anything is happening.”

Linda looked at him again now and pursed her lips. “I know Gray.”

He gave a faint smile and went to the opposite workstation from her. The popular thought now in the Service was to open up about the news of the potential station takeover. Let the people of Tri-America and the rest of the earth decide how to handle it, without the buffer and interference of antiquated military and intelligence officials. Those in the Service knew better of course. Or thought they did, he mused as he answered her implicit disapproval.

“Easy now Linda, if I didn’t know you better I’d suspect you of being a leftist.”

She looked sharply at him and then laughed. “You do indeed know me better,” she said softly.

It caught him off guard, and it showed.

“Anyway, get back there with Warner and help him,” she continued with a stern look. “He’s your partner after all.”

Gray paused a moment and then nodded. He and Warner had been together for a year now. It worked, he thought. Warner looked to him for guidance and experience in dealing with the new-found threat. Gray also knew that the younger officer needed a bit more from time to time. He might need a bit of courage and a sense of “everything’s going to be all right” now and then. We all need that, he thought.

Coming into the Service a year ago had to have been tough on Warner. Not even in the Academy did the secret of the alien invasion get out. Too many of the recruits left the Service before really even getting into the work. The Service couldn’t trust the most closely guarded secret of the past half century to potential short-timers. The fact of the matter was that the world, or at least the Tri-America area, held more interesting occupations and pastimes than the Service. The increased, almost forced isolation between the people of Earth had that effect, Gray thought. An ambivalence effect. Good title for a band.

With a slight chuckle he stood up from the workstation and walked back to the preparation area. He passed the operators at their workstations, all trying to monitor certain areas of the globe looking for additional signs of the enemy. The situation was direr now than the last time he’d been up in the Station six months ago. Then the invasion was limited mostly to the rebel human insurgency, leftists mostly, who wanted to take the Station out of the control of the Tri-America alliance and create a type of spaced-based science utopia. Gray scoffed at the idea. He knew the scientists who’d been involved. Their idea of utopia was strange at best, he thought.

Warner was leaning against a cabinet, packing additional rations into his bag. His space suit was on, the pants tied firmly around the waist with the legs tucked into his G-boots, creating a billowing effect around his knees. He heard Gray walk in and he turned around, his face dark from the anti-radiation paint. He looked Gray over and turned back to his work.

“Are you almost ready?” Gray asked.

Warner turned around again. “Yeah. Getting there anyway.”

He’s so serious, Gray thought. So serious, so very willing to take on the problems of the planet on his shoulders. A good kid to have as his partner.

He continued. “Ok good. I’ve spoken to Linda. We’ll need to be careful on the approach this time. Going in through the main landing bay like last time won’t work, because I don’t know who among the Station people are still with us.”

Warner nodded and turned back to his packing. “I’m glad you spoke to Linda then.”

Gray sat there for minute considering what he’d heard, and more importantly the tone of what he’d heard, then turned and walked out the door. He moved into the room across the hall where two men were working at a large flat table. A space suit was on the table, but it was different from Warner’s. A bit older, dirtier, torn around the edges. Worn and well-used.

“We’re almost ready sir. A bit more anti-radiation paint and it will be ready,” the lead technician told Gray.

Gray said nothing. Another trip into space and he was ready, though the adventures were starting to wear on him. It wasn’t just the physical demands or emotional drag of leaving the planet and his family and his friends behind. It wasn’t only that he missed out on so much life back home. It wasn’t just the fear anymore.

I’m older now, he thought. Older.