Peace Army (8 page)

“Well, I think Avery is going to call on her to help with the efforts in the Fourth Square, so she won’t be sitting still.”

“Ah. That’s good. She can be a pain in my rear when she’s bored,” Mouse teased. “Glad she’ll be a part of something meaningful. It’s a good thing, what you’re doing for those kids.”

“What
we’re
doing,” Grant corrected. “We all need to contribute to this if it’s going to be successful.”

Mouse, like all the other officers, would be expected to pitch in with the leadership training that would take place.

“Grant,” Tane called out from across the room. “The Culture Leader and I would like to speak with you for a moment.”

Grant socked Mouse playfully on the arm. “Well, there’s my cue.”

“Duty calls, eh? Would you like some advice?”

“Um, sure,” Grant said, not sure at all.

“Remember to include the Leadership Council on any big decisions. You know, like saving the world or co-opting its children to shoot guns. That kind of stuff.”

Mouse grinned. Grant winced.

“Yeah, yeah. I know. Keeping the Council’s feelings in mind is not one of my stronger qualities, but I’m working on it.”

“Well, work harder. You’re fortunate our Culture Leader is so understanding.” Grant stood still for the rebuke from his subordinate. He knew the man was right. “If you had made an announcement like the one you did today with someone like Leader Sabontey or Leader Alla in the room, you would have run into some serious resistance. Not because it was a bad idea, but because you didn’t follow protocol.”

“Believe me, Mouse, I understand. That’s why I have you to keep me in line on these things.”

“And I could have kept you in line this time, if I’d known.”

Grant could only sigh and nod. It was so much easier being a sergeant in charge of forty soldiers than being a general in charge of the world’s defense.

“Now, get over there and see what they want.” Mouse lowered his voice even further. “You don’t want to keep a Culture Leader waiting.”

“Fine. I’m going,” Grant agreed. “Oh. By the way, you and Sue should stop by our quarters this evening. You’re not going to believe what Avery did to our walls.”

“Oh yeah? Well, that sounds interesting. We’ll stop by after evening meal.”

Grant made his way across the room to where Tane and Randalyn were huddled. It seemed they were huddled a lot lately. His mind went back to the conversation he had interrupted a couple of days before. Hopefully, they were ready to share with him.

Chapter 8

Tane rubbed his hands together as Grant concluded his conversation with Colonel Mouse. They appeared to be having a pleasant conversation, which Tane took as a good sign.

The small scientist took a deep breath and said a silent mantra. After a lifetime of practice, the routine was as familiar as eating. Unfortunately, repeating his personal Peace verse rarely provided him the comfort it seemed to bestow upon others. He wondered, not for the first time, if his secret prevented him from finding a level of Peace that others so readily achieved.

His secret.

That’s what he had always called it.

That made it sound like it was a solid entity, something he could reach out and grasp. An object to turn over in his hands and inspect, analyze, fix.

But there was no fixing his secret. Tane was well into his twenties when he came to terms with that fact. No amount of science, no amount of internal reflection or social retraining could change who he was and what he wanted. It was both his affliction and the reason for his gift.

Tane could never have achieved the rank of Senior Scientist if not for his secret. The mantras that others relied upon never provided any measure of Peace. But hard work did, and Tane buried himself in his work at an early age. Those around him recognized the greatness and labeled him a uniquely driven man. What they did not know was he was driven by a need to forget his differences. It was through twenty-hour work days that he carved out his own brand of Peace, as elusive as it was.

All of these things ran through the scientist’s mind as he watched Grant cross the room. He glanced up at Culture Leader Trevino’s face and, although she was smiling, thought he saw similar thoughts etched upon her countenance. Grant had once relayed a saying from ancient times that Tane was certain was true.
It takes one to know one.

He reached out to his Culture Leader and gave her hand an uncharacteristic squeeze. Her hand, like his, was damp with perspiration. Randalyn looked down and Tane watched as the false smile on her face was replaced by a genuine, though smaller, version.

“It will be fine,” Tane reassured his leader. He wanted to be brave. Instead, he struggled to breathe and his heart felt twice its normal size as it hammered at his insides.

“Or not,” she countered. Her smile withered. “Either way, it will be what it will be.” She was nothing if not brave, he thought.

* * * * *

Grant found Mouse outside the prison, getting ready to take his fighter on a training run.
Good timing
, Grant thought.

“Colonel Mouse, a quick word?” Grant interrupted his friend as he was climbing into the cockpit. Mouse settled himself into the seat, waved away the civilian worker helping him into the carrier, and turned toward his commanding officer. Grant waited for the civilian to climb down from the ladder before ascending himself.

“Wassup, man?” Mouse asked when Grant reached the top. Grant noted, not for the first time, that Mouse had taken on many of Grant’s verbal quirks and sayings as his own. When asked about it once by Avery, Grant overheard Mouse joking that he liked “speaking in ancient tongues.” Grant wasn’t amused, but Avery got a kick out of it. Soon after, Grant noticed Eli doing the same thing. It was cute coming from his son.

“Hey, remember that invitation to drop by this evening after meal time? Well, I’m gonna need to rescind that offer for now.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. There’s a Leadership Council meeting tomorrow. I’d like you to attend.”

Mouse raised his eyebrows. “Really?” His tone expressed his surprise at the request. “Because we just ended our command meeting twenty minutes ago and nothing was mentioned about a trip to Urop. What’s come up since then?”

Without mentioning names, Grant filled Mouse in on what he learned from his recent discussion with Tane and Culture Leader Trevino. He was unsure how Mouse might react to the situation, so he tried to be as delicate as possible.

“Wow,” Mouse replied. A low whistle escaped his mouth as he mulled over what he had just heard. “What about Randalyn? She’s going to be at the meeting anyway. Why can’t she bring this up before the Council?”

“Um. Well, let’s just say that that isn’t a wise move at this time.”

Mouse stared at Grant for a few seconds. Grant knew the gears were turning in his friend’s head, and that any moment he would put the pieces—

“Ah. I see.”

—together.

“Randalyn?” Mouse asked with a direct look.

“Yep.” Grant gave a quick nod to the affirmative. “Tane, too.”

“Well, that explains some things,” Mouse replied under his breath. He stared vacantly down the runway where the carrier sat, ready to go. Grant knew he was trying to get his head around the matter.

“If you have any concerns, let me know now. I can go if I need to.”

“Oh, heck no.” Mouse smiled and shook his head at the thought. “The last thing we need is you standing in front of the Leadership Council with something like this.”

“I was hoping you’d say that, Mouse, because—” Grant paused, took a breath, and continued. “Eventually, everyone in the world is going to have to get used to the idea. I’d just as soon as you started getting used to it now.”

“And what if the Council doesn’t agree? What then?”

“Oh, that won’t happen.” Grant laughed and slapped Mouse on the shoulder. “Not with you leading the charge.”

Mouse continued to gaze straight ahead through the cockpit glass. He was obviously unconvinced.

“What about Titan?” Mouse didn’t need to remind Grant that the alien ship was due to land in two days.

“Make it a quick trip and you won’t miss a second of the action,” Grant replied. He watched as Mouse took a deep breath, held it for a second, then released it slowly.

“Get off my ladder,” Mouse ordered. He picked up his flight helmet and pulled it roughly onto his head. He punched a button on the console and the bubble that encased the cockpit began to descend. Grant moved back quickly to avoid being hit.

“I’ll be back when I can,” Grant heard Mouse say right before the hard plastic shell closed fully.

Grant began to climb down from the ladder, but stopped and tapped the shell. When he got Mouse’s attention, he gave him a thumbs-up sign. Mouse gave a brief flash of gold teeth and jerked his head as a sign to get away from the carrier. Grant descended quickly, pulled the rolling ladder away from the carrier, and watched as his second-in-command’s craft screamed down the runway.

When the carrier was out of sight, Grant turned back to the entrance to the prison—his Pentagon. He needed to discuss this latest development with someone, and set off to find Avery.

As he walked, he considered what he had learned in his brief, fifteen-minute discussion with Tane and Randalyn.

“Un-fucking-believable,” he muttered after checking to be sure no one could hear. Over the past six years, he had become better at hiding the anger, belligerence, or aggression that others might hear in his voice or view in his mannerisms. It came in handy at times like these, when he found himself shocked anew at something this current version of Earth threw his way.

Who could have predicted that we’d still be having a debate on gays in the military six hundred years later?

Unfortunately, the debate in the current world didn’t end with the military. If what Tane and Randalyn told him was accurate, and he had no reason to doubt them, then being gay was against the law.

Everywhere.

Grant was firm believer in individual rights. Always had been. That belief bled over into his feelings on gay rights—not that they were called that now. When he mentioned the term “gay” to Randalyn and Tane, neither knew the term. It was apparently a lost word, one no longer used in today’s society, in any context.

In his time, it was a known fact that being gay wasn’t a choice, as many had once believed. Science had proven that men and women were born with predetermined preferences hard-wired into their brains and beings. He didn’t understand the science—hadn’t needed to. It was just something that… was.

Apparently that knowledge hadn’t mattered to the designers of today’s “Peaceful” society. Like most other expressions of individuality that were missing from present-day Earth, it had been deemed “erasable” from society. Something to be suppressed by the need to conform to a narrow set of accepted ideals and norms. According to Tane, anyone who expressed feelings or inclinations toward homosexuality was submitted for the same psychological re-training given to those who could not control their anger and aggressive tendencies.

What most of society did not know was that re-training for sexual orientation often failed. The same was not true for those who underwent re-training for aggression. That carried a very high success rate. But unlike those who couldn’t control their anger for very long, those who failed to be re-trained for sexual orientation usually learned to hide their inclinations.

As more and more failed re-training, underground groups slowly formed. Like Tane, they grew and matured in secret. Over time, these disparate individuals and groups networked, merged, and grew. Eventually, they became a large, organized entity—an entity with no formal name, but a very real agenda. It was an agenda of self-preservation.

While the rest of society grew to accept and embrace the concept of “Peace,” the members of this group did not. Outwardly, they recited the Council line. In private, they resisted most of Earth’s new norms and quietly, but actively, planned their separation from the rest of the world.

Resistance and planning took many forms. They gathered weapons and stashed them away. They accumulated land and farms in a centralized area in S’merca that would be their homeland. They selected leaders and took steps to promote their members to key posts and public offices.

The most important step their members took was to volunteer for assignments at the re-training centers. After decades of effort, they controlled ninety percent of all re-training efforts around the globe. Once they gained control of the centers, identifying, protecting, and recruiting others like themselves was easy.

The final component of their century-long plan fell into place when they put a Culture Leader on the Leadership Council.

The group was only weeks from announcing their succession from the rest of the world’s Peaceful society when the Minith landed on Earth. That was eighteen years ago and caused them to put their plans on hold as all of humanity struggled against the alien invaders. Instead of announcing their separation from the world and setting up a homeland in S’merca, they shifted their focus to defeating the Minith.

Grant and all of Earth knew the rest. It was already recorded in the annals of human history. The efforts of the Senior Scientist had saved the world from the Minith.

What the citizens of Earth did not know was that Tane and his fellow homosexuals were again ready to come out of the closet. The fact that the Minith were interfering with those plans a second time was too much to bear. Instead of waiting, as they had years ago, they decided to take a different, more “cooperative” approach. In exchange for open acceptance of homosexuality by the Leadership Council, the secret organization would offer their assistance in any future fight with the Minith.

Tane and Randalyn were offering the Council a good bargain, in Grant’s opinion.

As Tane had so eloquently put it only minutes earlier, they had done their duty—now they wanted their reward. And they were unwilling to wait for the current emergency to sort itself out before getting it.