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  “It was the politician’s problem,” said Deter. “Too many struggles back on earth.”

  Lt glanced at the wall and beyond it, the planet.

  “Still are.”

  “I miss it though,” Deter took a deep breath. “Clean air is something you take for granted.”

  “Drinking piss. Growing potatoes in your own shit. And it stinks in here. Stinks all over your god damned ship. I don’t take nothing for granted Hoss.”

  Deter chuckled.

  “The Captain said you were unorthodox.”

  “That what he said, huh? Well me and your Captain are gonna have to get eye to eye to get me back home.”

  Deter grunted.

  “Is that what you want to do? Go home?”

  “Shit yeah. What else did you think?”

  Deter shrugged.

  “I thought you would go hunting for the lost bomb on Mars.”

  “What lost bomb?”

  Deter stared at Lt for a moment, debating on how much information to share with a man he just met. Then he shook his head, wispy hair dancing like cobwebs in the wind.

  “I wasn’t there, mind you, but the Captain was, so I’m only telling you second hand information. The government landed a secret weapon on Mars, a weapon that could destroy all of the Licks. But we were overrun and lost the Red Planet before it could be used.”

  It was Lt’s turn to stare.

  “It’s just sitting there?”

  “The Captain was in charge of the Global when it went down. One of the pods had the bomb on it, and he saw it land.”

  “If he watched it land, why didn’t he use it?”

  Deter shrugged.

  “I wasn’t at that fight. I was on another vessel in another battle.”

  “Plenty enough of those to go around.”

  “Back then,” Deter sighed. “Too many. And still.”

  “Twelve ships are doing a pretty good job up here.”

  “We had three times that many when we started. Our numbers dwindle.”

  Lt watched him in silence for a moment.

  “We could have used a fleet that size back on earth.”

  Deter shook his head.

  “Then we wouldn’t even have twelve ships.”

  “Alright, I guess you’re right. Still, that’s a lot of firepower just hanging out up here.”

  “Annie hasn’t told you what we do?”

  “Harass the line,” said Lt. “We called it scoot and shoot on the ground.”

  “We’re not strong enough to engage in a pitched battle. Every ship is precious, and so yes, we attack the outlying alien vessels when we can. But we are holding the line.”

  “What line?” Lt asked.

  “The armada. We have held them away from earth for years.”

  Lt mulled that over and let it marinate.

  Maybe he had let his anger get the better of him, and cloud his judgement. He couldn’t discount their bravery, and knowing that they were down one third of the force they started with made a difference.

  Maybe the difference in how the Council had looked at him.

  He knew loss too, though. His men. His family. His home.

  And still he fought.

  The Gen one Suit made it easier, but it was just an enhancement.

  Real warriors had grit.

  “Your tech works up here,” he said in a soft voice.

  “It does,” Deter agreed. “I am technically a technician, by nescessity if not training.”

  “I mean the technology,” Lt moved to the Suit and fumbled the helmet off the workbench.

  “Yes?”

  He slapped the helmet on his head and read through the heads up display that scrawled across the screen as the computer components inside the armor began to communicate with the nanobots in his system.

  He used his chin to stop on radio and began scrolling frequencies.

  “You can send light beams from ship to ship,” he said as he tried to read. His excitement made the words almost jumble on the screen.

  “The holo-communicator.”

  “Holographs,” said Lt. “But I bet you used the damn radio to send them.”

  “Radio signals.”

  “That’s what I said, right. So if your radio works up here, I can send signals to earth.”

  “We tried that,” Deter explained. “It was the first thing we did on entering orbit.”

  “You tried broadband,” Lt grinned. “I’m going string to string.”

  CHAPTER 11

  “Are you seeing this?”

  Renard tapped Weber on the arm to draw his attention to the fence.

  “This is not good,” his old Sgt. Said.

  A group of men led the armored squad through the front gate at gunpoint, but it was Jake who drew their attention.

  “Guess he picked a side,” said Renard. “What do we do?”

  “Go home,” Weber sighed.

  “Or we fight,” Renard suggested.

  But Weber didn’t listen. He turned and slipped back into the shadows, then when he was hidden by the building jogged toward the far corner, Renard on his heels.

  “We could take them,” Renard said.

  “Yes,” Weber said in a soft voice. “We could kill them all. Then what?”

  “Then we win.”

  Weber stopped on the far side of the building and began stripping the armor off piece by piece. He set it in a careful pile next to the wall.

  “What do we win?”

  “The battle.”

  “And after that? How do you think the survivors would see us? Doing the alien’s dirty work? Doing the same thing the Lick’s do?”

  “But we’re soldiers,” Renard argued. “We can’t let them do this.”

  Weber finished stripping from the armor and picked up his helmet. He tucked it under his arm.

  “We don’t have much time,” he said. “Come with me.”

  Renard turned his head to look over his shoulder then back at the man in front of him.

  It was a short lived debate.

  He began stripping quickly and soon two identical piles of armor lay in the darkness.

  “We need clothes,” said Weber.

  He jogged around the corner, and to the open door.

  The mob hadn’t reached it yet, but they soon would.

  Weber rolled into the building and as soon as Renard was through, he kicked the door shut and looked around for something to bar it with.

  “Block this!” he yelled and a couple of the civilians inside jumped to comply, the urgency in his voice commanding action.

  They moved several box crates turned into homes in front of the door.

  It would have to be good enough. Weber raced toward the lab.

  The two civilian guards gave a small laugh as he approached. Weber glanced down and realized the sight he made, a wild eyed man in his underwear.

  He wasn’t sure it they remembered him from before the armor.

  “Get the Doc,” he said. “Trouble.”

  One of the guards glanced at the helmet Weber carried under one arm and rushed inside screaming for the Doc.

  The bespectacled man reappeared a moment later.

  “Where’s your Suit?” he asked in confusion.

  “No time to explain, Doc,” Weber thrust the helmet into the man’s gloved hands. “There’s a mob outside with the rest of the squad hostage.”

  Weber didn’t answer any more questions, just turned and continued running up the corridor, stopping only long enough to snag clothes and boots that were unattended.

  Renard followed, searching for garments of his own.

  “But!” Doc called after them, wanting more, but the men disappeared into the corridor and were gone.

  He could hear Burmage screaming, a doppler effect echoing off the narrow walls as the man raced for the lab.

  “They’re coming! They’re coming.”

  Doc looked at the door behind him.

  He couldn’t bar it. There was a hol
e in the wall next to the door and only two men to defend it.

  He would have to face them, the men in the mob.

  Doc could hear them as they poured through the door. Screams preceded them as they made their way through the inside refugee camp.

  They were coming. For him. He knew it.

  And they would find him ready.

  He didn’t have armor. Truth be told, he was afraid of putting it on. Afraid of what the Gen One Suit’s might do to him.

  He wasn’t sure what he was afraid of more.

  He could see them, closing the distance fast. A large group of a dozen, led by the man Jake called his father.

  Doc settled the helmet on his head and readied for his approach.

  The faceplate glowed in a scrawl of instructions, the Suit trying to connect with its missing parts.

  It took a few seconds to get used to, while his brain adjusted to the overload of information presented in front of his eyes.

  The screen cleared and he could see one of the men approach. It flashed red as the man punched him in his unprotected stomach.

  Doc fell to his knees, mouth open in a scream. His chin hit something inside the helmet, and the last thing he heard was Lt’s voice.

  “Anyone copy?”

  CHAPTER 12

  "This ain't going to go down like you think it's going to go down," said Lt.

  Annie touched her thumb to the tip of her nose as she brushed a fist across her face.

  "You think I got this scar from being too pretty?"

  They circled each other on a well worn mat spread out in the cargo hold of the ship. Most of the space had been converted into multi-use facilities, a necessity of life aboard a ship, but this part of the hold had been kept clear.

  Now he could see why.

  She darted in and sent a punch toward his head.

  He ducked to the side and spun away before she landed it, and came up smiling.

  "You know Kung Fu," he said. "I know Kung Pao."

  "What the hell is Kung Pao?"

  "My favorite food before the fucking Lick's showed up."

  He stalked toward her, pressing her as she danced backwards to keep out of his reach. He didn't stop, hands raised in loosely balled fists as he drew closer.

  She let him get within a foot, dropped and swept his legs.

  Lt had her in his sights. He didn't plan on hitting her hard, just a little love tap, his daddy would have called it.

  He moved in fast, then stared up at the ceiling as his diaphragm spasmed and stars danced on the edge of his vision.

  "Son of a bitch," he managed to groan, but before he could roll over, she straddled him and gripped him by the throat.

  He could see her fist held back by her ear, ready to pound into his unprotected face, and he still couldn't breathe.

  "Say uncle," she grinned, proud of herself for winning.

  "Damn it Warbucks, you're giving me a semi."

  Lt planted his feet against the deck and bucked upwards. Her legs were tight against his arms, but not squeezed tight enough. When he lifted, he jerked his arms up too, sent her sailing along his chest, neck and forehead.

  He didn't account for her uniform scraping a red angry welt from his chin, across his nose and into his hairline, but at least he was free.

  He rolled over and pushed up from the mat, used the back of one hand to wipe his watering eyes as he tried to focus on where she landed.

  Except she wasn't there.

  He spun around to find her behind him, waiting, with a swift kick into his unprotected groin. It was just a glancing blow, but still enough to pop blue stars behind his eyes and make it harder to catch his already lost breath.

  "Uncle," he groaned and flopped to the mat gripping his tender groin and bruised ego.

  Annie plopped down beside him, her shoulder rubbing his.

  "And that's what we do for fun around here," she said.

  "Fuck me," said Lt. "Remind me not to piss you off. That's fighting dirty."

  "We don't fight for fun," she said. "We fight to win."

  She ignored his hand massaging his balls as he tried to move the ache out of them.

  "I think you popped the right one," he moaned.

  "Get over it," she said. "You weren't using them up here anyway."

  He turned his head to see if she was grinning or if busting his balls after a kick to the groin was her idea of flirting, and felt a small thrill throb under the ache as he saw the corner of her mouth curl up in a smile.

  "That another way to have fun up here, Warbucks?"

  The smile dropped from her face and he could see the lines reappear. Worry lines that crinkled the corner of her eyes, deeper frown lines bisected by the scar that traced along her features.

  "Space is a fucking deadly place," she said in a raspy voice. "We don't get attached up here."

  "Hold on now," Lt elbowed her with his free arm, the other still cupping his recovering injury. "Nobody said nothing about getting attached. You got a ring you want to put on it, Warbucks?"

  The smile came back, a ghost of its former self, but still there. He was glad to see it.

  "If you fucking try to kiss me right now," she warned him. "I'll knee you in the balls so hard, you'll have testicles for eyes."

  "Kissing costs extra," said Lt.

  He pushed up off the mat and held out a hand to pull her after him. She didn't let go right away, just a moment to linger, but he noticed and she smiled a little harder.

  "You could start an account if you wanted," he leaned in.

  "You blew it, Lt," she grinned. "Way to fuck up a perfect moment."

  She let go of his hand and let him watch her strut to the door. She glanced back over her shoulder before she went through and nodded.

  "Thanks for the workout."

  "Thanks for kicking my ass," Lt waved.

  "Anytime."

  Then she was gone, and he put a hand back on his crotch. The pain was still there, a low dull throb that vibrated down to his feet. It took a moment for him to realize the engines were firing up, the power shuddering through the deck plating.

  Engines meant they had to move, and that meant trouble. Lt hobbled as he put a shirt over his tank and ran for the bridge to see what was going on.

  CHAPTER 13

  Lt arranges with Babe and Waldo to clear out a base of Licks so they can land the ship.

  They land and get ready to load up. But Lt has to go hunt for the two missing men.

  He tracks them and convinces them to return with him to Mars.

  “It’s a myth, you know.”

  “The size of my johnson,” Lt snorted. “That’s no myth.”

  “The secret weapon. It’s not real.”

  “That a fact?”

  “No one found it. And we looked. Dozens of patrols sent out to search. No one ever came back.”

  “They have a map?”

  Weber shook his head.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  Lt reached into his pouch and pulled out a folded piece of paper and spread it on the table.

  GRAB THE NEXT INSTALLMENT IN THE SERIES

  Out in Two Weeks

  DUST OFF

  Want more to read until then?

  Lunar Hustle- Prequel to The Dipole Shield

  The Dipole Shield - The Dipole Series

  Planet 9 - The Dipole Series

  Phalanx - Invasion Earth

  Pyrrhic - Invasion Earth

  Beachhead - Invasion Earth

  Bridgehead - Invasion Earth

  Lodgement – Invasion Earth

  Ultima Thule – Invasion Earth

  Infiltrate

  Dust Off

  Defilade

  Moon Men

  Epoch - The Future Templar

  Eon- The Future Templar

  Era - The Future Templar

  Super Secret Space Mission

  The Herd Shot Round the World