***

  Steele came to a second time on a stretcher. Two big goons carried the stretcher, carried him. Steele noticed the blue uniform and the GPI world symbol on a shoulder. GPI—Global Peace Initiative—these two were political police thugs, the kind who did the dirty work.

  Steele debated pretending he was still asleep or maybe he should jump up and attack. One of his arms flopped off his chest, the hand swinging down, the fingers dragging across concrete.

  “Hey,” the rearward thug said.

  The other glanced over his shoulder.

  “His hand,” the second thug said.

  The first goon halted, twisting as he kept hold of the stretcher handles. He peered down at Steele.

  The colonel watched through narrowly open eyes.

  The first goon grinned nastily. He was missing a front tooth. “We got a regular sabotage artist here. He’s play-acting, trying to lull us. Hey, big bird colonel. Lift your hand. Quit letting it drag on the ground.”

  Steele tried to pull his arm back up to his chest. The arm refused to cooperate.

  “Did you hear me?” the goon said.

  “Yes,” Steele whispered. He hated his weakness.

  The goons traded glances.

  “Must have gotten a good whiff of the gas,” the second thug said.

  “If you’re acting, I’m gonna make you wish you weren’t,” the first goon said.

  Steele just waited. It was all he could do.

  The goon swore softly. The two set down the stretcher, and the first GPI thug put the colonel’s hand back on his chest.

  “Keep it there,” the goon said.

  The man had bad breath, almost making the colonel gag. He laced his fingers together, deciding he didn’t want the thug talking to him this close again.

  The two goons picked up the stretcher while the colonel lost consciousness once again.

  ***

  Steele came to for the third time. The floor vibrated and something told him the compartment moved. It was dim in here, but not so much that he couldn’t see.

  The colonel propped himself up on his elbows. He lay on a stretcher. He wore his WSA uniform but lacked a belt, lacked everything else, including socks and boots, as he was barefoot.

  The Corpocratists must have taken everything else.

  Steele heard snoring, and realized the compartment held a quarter of the company. The others lay on stretchers just like his. They also wore their dirty, sweat-stained uniforms but lacked belts, socks, boots, anything else.

  “Sergeant,” Steele whispered.

  Jones was lying on his side next to him. The big man rolled over and regarded the colonel.

  “Finally awake, huh?” Jones said.

  Steele said nothing.

  “I think we’re on a train,” Jones said. “We’re moving fast. I’d guess this is the new magnetic rail-line the Chinese installed two years ago.”

  Steele ingested the news in silence.

  “Nothing we can do about it now,” Jones said.

  Steele’s eyes flashed. He shoved up to a sitting position. Maybe the Corpocratists had captured him, captured the company, that didn’t mean he’d surrendered.

  “I saw the governor,” Steele said.

  Jones didn’t appear impressed.

  “She seemed to be one of them,” Steele said.

  Jones shrugged.

  That angered Steele. “Sergeant Jones.”

  “Please, sir, don’t work yourself up. It’s over. They finally caught us. We always knew it would end like this.”

  “You listen to me, Sergeant.”

  “No!” Jones shouted.

  Many of the others, lying on their stretchers, looked up.

  “It’s over,” Jones said. “We lost. We have to make the best of it now…sir.”

  Steele couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Jones never quit. If anyone else had told him… Oh. Heat flamed on Steele’s face. No doubt, he blushed. He finally understood what the sergeant was trying to make him understand. The Corpocratists had obviously bugged the compartment. This was the wrong place to make plans.

  Steele gave Jones a single significant glance. He used it to let the sergeant know he understood.

  “I never thought you’d give up so easily,” Steele said, letting contempt enter his voice.

  “You don’t understand anything,” Jones said.

  “I do. Now, kindly shut the hell up, Sergeant. I need to think.”

  Jones gave him a significant glance in return. The big man grunted afterward, deliberately turning his back on the colonel and lying down.

  Afterward, Steele wrapped his arms around his up-thrust knees. He needed to think. He needed a plan. The Corpocratists had captured him, but this game was far from finished.

  Just one mistake—that was all he needed from his guards. Then, they would play the game a new way deep in enemy territory. The key to this was to keep his morale high. The Corpocratists thought they had him. He was going to show them otherwise.

  -45-

  The next few days proved bewildering as Steele and his men switched from intense boredom and inaction to fast-paced movement and testing.

  They indeed rode a magnetic train, crossing the Mississippi River and entering Little Rock, Arkansas.

  Heavily armed and armored GPI goons watched the captured WSA company file out in the rail-yard. The blue-uniformed Corpocratists lacked firearms, but had shock batons and tasers, plastic shields and BPC vests.

  The company split apart, climbing into old U.S. Army trucks. The trucks drove a short distance. Then, they exited into a barbed wire compound.

  Steele doubted this was the final destination given the temporary setup. Besides, most internment camps were in the wilderness, far from populated centers.

  After each receiving a bowl of oatmeal, Steele and his group filed out of the camp and back into the old army trucks. They traveled twenty minutes tops, climbed out of the back and marched toward a large, shiny, oval-shaped building.

  “What is that place?” Steele asked a guard.

  The GPI goon sneered at him, shoving Steele with his plastic shield.

  They entered as a group, with more goons waiting in a main lobby. Each WSA soldier had two guards. Steele was among the first to leave the assembly.

  He marched down a pristine hall with two GPI men. They looked ready for him to try something. The bigger goon kept fingering his baton as if he wanted to swing it.

  They brought him into what looked like a doctor’s examination room.

  “Strip to your skivvies,” the bigger goon said.

  Steele stared at the thick-bodied man. He was bigger than Sergeant Jones.

  With a fatalistic shrug, Steele unbuttoned his dirty shirt, laying it over a chair. He took off his pants and did the same.

  “You don’t look like much to me,” the goon said.

  Steele had lean muscles and more than his share of wounds, a puckered bullet scar under his ribs. He also had a poorly healed shrapnel scar on his right thigh and several tiny scars from surgeries related to battle wounds.

  “Not so tough now, huh?” the goon said.

  Steele did not answer. He didn’t like waiting in his underwear next to a Corpocratist brute. He suspected the GPI had chosen boorish recruits on purpose, men and women easily persuaded to beat up or even fire on the defenseless. Normal soldiers quickly grew disillusioned and useless when ordered to acts of butchery. A few people had emotional problems and little empathy. They were the psychopaths and sadists who enjoyed such cruel tasks.

  “You think you can give me the silent treatment?” the goon asked.

  The door opened before Steele could respond. A woman in a white lab coat entered. She wore glasses and had pens in her front pocket.

  “Hello,” she said in a foreign accent. It might have been Greek or Turkish, although she didn’t seem like a Muslim. “Please, climb up onto the table.”

  Steele hesitated.

  The big goon shoved him, making him stagger against the examining table.

  “Did you hear her?” the goon snarled.

  “Please,” the scientist said, while shaking her head.

  The goon eyed her as if trying to decide if she could get him in trouble or not.

  “Must I speak to the General?” she asked.

  The goon grew pale. It was his turn to shake his head. He backed away until he bumped against a wall. He seemed to chew, maybe trying to work up an insult against Steele. His eyes held the wicked promise of future pain.

  Steele hopped up onto the examination table.

  The lab-coated scientist put the earpieces of a stethoscope into her ears. She approached him, touching his skin with the cold instrument.

  “Inhale please,” she said.

  Flummoxed by the examination, Steele complied.

  In an orderly manner, she gave him a medical examination, asking him various questions concerning his health.

  “What’s this about?” Steele finally asked.

  The scientist glanced up into his eyes for a moment before quickly looking down. It was clear she did not want to answer him.

  “Tell me,” she said later, as she used her fingers to touch the shrapnel scars. “Do you have any pieces of metal in you, grenade fragments, perhaps?”

  Something about the way she asked that seemed important. Steele debated lying about it.

  “Please,” she said. “Truthfulness will save you much agony later. It is important you tell me the truth.”

  “A surgeon once told me I have a few slivers of a fragmentation grenade in my left thigh,” Steele said.

  “You are certain of this?” she asked, showing the most emotion so far.

  Steele nodded.

  She moved away from him, picked up a recorder and spoke quietly into it.

  “Why does that matter?” Steele asked.

  She regarded him. “You will undergo a brief surgery. We must remove the fragments.”

  “Why do they matter?” he asked again.

  “You could die otherwise.”

  Steele snorted. That sounded like BS to him. “Are you going to implant pain devices in me? Is that what this is about?”

  “We will remove the grenade fragments.”

  “No. Not until you tell me why.”

  A hint of a sadistic smile appeared on her lips. “I will not tell you, as I am forbidden to do so. You will not stop the process, either. For your own peace of mind, Colonel Steele, you must accept your fate.”

  He decided this was neither the time nor the place to resist. But he would accept nothing. Instead, he would watch and wait, and when he acted, he was going to remember every indignity the Corpocratists had heaped upon him. He promised that by—

  No. He would not use the Lord’s Name in vain. He would do as the Good Book said and let his yes be yes and his no be no.

  The scientist sighed, shaking her head.

  “What?” Steele asked.

  “I can see the wheels turning in your brain. He can see the wheels moving.” She pointed at the surly goon as if pointing at an inferior animal.

  The big goon blinked rapidly, realizing they were talking about him.

  “You have no idea what transpires here,” she said.

  “So tell me,” Steele said.

  “You will learn, but not before the General decides it is time.”

  “Are you Greek or Turkish?” Steele asked suddenly.

  The scientist looked up at him, her eyes holding contact with his for longer this time.

  “I am Kurdish,” she said.

  “Just like Saladin of the Third Crusade,” Steele said.

  “Why would you ask me this?”

  Steele decided she was pretty, even though she kept her dark hair up in a bun. The glasses seemed fake, part of a disguise to hide her beauty.

  Whatever she saw in his eyes made her angry. She scowled. Half turning to the goon, she said, “If he attempts to touch me, you have liberty to…to subdue him.”

  “Subdue?” the goon growled, as if he didn’t understand the word’s meaning.

  “Do not hit him on the head,” she said. “But you can use your energy tools to shock him into submission.”

  “Now?” the goon asked.

  Her gazed flickered to Steele before dropping. “No. Only if he attempts to touch me or if he makes a rude comment, one I deem out of line.”

  The goon did not respond verbally, but he drew the shock baton from its holder. He edged off the wall, obviously eager to inflict pain.

  Steele cataloged that, and he filed the woman’s reaction. In combat terms, this was a recon mission. He gathered intelligence on the enemy. He searched for weaknesses even as he waited for the Corpocratists to tell him what their strange behavior meant in terms of him and the company.

  -46-

  HIMALAYAN MOUNTAINS

  NOVEMBER 2060

  Built high in the Himalayan Mountains was a huge mansion, a semi-permanent retreat for the most powerful man on Earth, Director Anwar Gray: a Brahmin from former India. He was the most powerful CEO of the Greater Corpocracy and WRC, the World Ruling Council that moderated, coordinated and implemented united corporate strategy.

  The mansion was at such a high altitude that it was unreachable by helicopters and many jets. Gray and others reached it through a unique rocket plane, similar to the rockets that routinely traveled up to the orbitals.

  The rocket planes were not the main source for provisioning the orbitals. This task was accomplished by laser launch systems, which had greatly reduced the cost per pound of items sent up to Near-Earth Orbit. The launch system had made building the orbitals feasible.

  In essence, the heavy laser from the launch platform burned the fuel in the rocket. It appeared then that the rocket rode the laser up into the heavens.

  Anwar had summoned three people who had attended the original meeting that sent him the paper on the Earth’s response to the aliens at Saturn.

  The three included Rumpelstiltskin, the diminutive, big-headed, and hippie-looking polymath scientist, Elaine Barth, the sly CEO beauty with the mind sharper than a razor, and James Petty, a square-shouldered, iron-haired man with bulging muscles, known for his belief in ruthless brutality.

  They had arrived together and now waited in a large lounge chamber with couches, a wet bar and a spectacular view of Mount Everest in the distance. Engineers had pumped the room—most of the mansion rooms, in fact—with greater air density. That was so the three, and others, could breathe easily. This was most important for health-challenged Rumpelstiltskin.

  Elaine wore a clinging dress down to her ankles. She revealed too much cleavage and looked stunning with her dark hair elegantly styled in the manner her agents had learned Anwar Gray preferred. She held a small glittering purse in which she kept a tiny pistol. Was she shocked Gray’s security team hadn’t confiscated it? That was more than possible.

  James Petty wore a conservative black suit and tie, reminiscent of the attire from before the nuclear war. He was big and looked strong, his thick fingers seeming as if they could easily bend steel bars.

  Rumpelstiltskin had climbed onto a tall stool, his short legs and stumpy feet looking ridiculous. He sucked on a straw from a tall glass of orange juice. He wore a white lab coat, as he knew Gray wanted his scientists to look the part. Today, his long hippie hair was well combed, ill suiting his misshapen head and face.

  At last, a door opened and Anwar Gray entered the lounge. He was six feet, lighter skinned than most Indians and handsome to an inordinate degree. He had short white hair and wore a long Indian suit with a Nehru cap on his head. The only real ostentation was large jeweled rings on his fingers. They almost seemed misplaced.

  Elaine’s agents had learned that several of the rings were capable of firing projectiles or deadly rays.

  Gray welcomed them with his melodious voice and suave manners. He bid them sit on the couches with him.

  There was a large couch for each, with a glass-topped table in the center. Elaine Barth looked startling as she crossed her legs. James Petty seemed like a ruthless mob boss, while Rumpelstiltskin looked like an ugly kid sitting with the adults.

  Gray spoke a few words before saying, “We should get to the point of the meeting. Our people have studied the aliens for five full months now. According to the reports, the generational vessel heads for Neptune as far as we can tell. Their small spaceships flit between Titan and Rhea that orbit Saturn. There appears to be large structures rising on Titan, but it is difficult to know for sure given the distance and normal cloud cover on the moon. So far, the aliens have not attempted to contact us. The briefs I’m reading suggest they wish to manufacture more spaceships and possibly munitions before they send a delegation to Earth. It seems they must know of us. Am I missing anything here?”

  Elaine Barth shook her head.

  James Petty seemed uncomfortable.

  Rumpelstiltskin ran stubby fingers through his hair, staring out the great window that showed Mount Everest.

  “You,” Gray said.

  Rumpelstiltskin jumped, his head whipping about to stare wide-eyed at the man.

  “You warned the others about alien aggression,” Gray said. “Have you changed your mind or come to any more conclusions regarding that or them?”

  “No, sir,” Rumpelstiltskin said.

  James Petty cleared his throat.

  Gray inclined his head to him.

  “Are we sure it’s wise to send out an expeditionary force at this juncture?” Petty asked. He’d changed his original opinion on the subject, after having ingested endless reports. “My experts have used old Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as an example. In 1941, the Japanese sent their Combined Fleet against the American Pacific Fleet stationed there, winning a tactical victory but strategically making a significant error.”

  “Go on,” Gray said.

  “The Pearl Harbor sneak attack solidified the American people for war against Japan,” Petty said. “I’m not averse to hitting hard and fast, but won’t we ensure hostilities between us forever by striking out of the blue or out of the dark like this?”

  “Comments,” Gray said, glancing at the others.

  Elaine shook her head.

  “You have no comment?” Gray asked her.