Chapter XI

Chapter 11

August 1, 4030

1727 Hours

Command Center—Moon base 2A

Two old soldiers sit opposite one another. Between them, a glass table with six seats on each side. In the dead center of the glass table is a spherical silver object.

They stare at one another.

Cord leans forward and clasps his hands together. He can't remember the last time he felt so anxious when it came to interacting with Letty. He feels like he's regressed into a little kindergartner who can't wait to pee. He's shifting in his seat back and forth. His eyes glance at his watch.

17:27.

He looks back up at Letty. She looks frail in her old age. Her eyes are bloodshot, her skin pale, and her chosen wardrobe: a two-piece purple pajama suit with a cup of space coffee in her left hand. Attire for an old age home. Not in a war room, nor for a General.

Letty takes a sip of her space coffee: water, a few pieces of dried leaves, flower petals, and a shot of caffeine powder. It's far from actual coffee, which Letty, along with the rest of Parlem would love to reacquire. However, since the gravity chamber in the east wing broke down in the Floweritorium, Thomas refuses to give up any chambers for the desired coffee bean. He's a stubborn man, but as the war hero who now feeds the entire Moon Federation, along with a quarter of Parlem, General Letty doesn't have much leverage when it comes to harvesting coffee beans over food.

People need to eat. People don't need coffee.

She sighs, her eyes falling to her cup.

It's these kinds of missions that have you wishing the small rations of coffee grains didn't go to special events or for the highest of the high.

It's hard to kick fifty years of drinking coffee. But you'd think, in the last five without it, one would forget about it.

But no. For some reason, the desire for coffee, once acquired, will always sit on your tongue—a craving you can never kick.

Letty sets down her cup.

Coffee or not, maybe I should see if he'd be willing to open the second floor again. I could always gut another abandoned colony for the parts.

Letty smacks her lips together.

"Not a good drink?" Cord asks, trying to ease the tension.

"Tastes like weeds, but does the job," she says with a pleasant, warming smile.

"Shall we get to business then?"

Letty leans back in her chair and kicks her bare feet up onto the glass table.

Cord, a little shocked at the move—doesn't comment.

"Hit me with the news,"

He nods and pulls out a folded piece of paper from his breast pocket. He unfolds the paper and sets it down, pulling out a pair of eyeglasses.

He clears his throat.

"The surrounding Hawkeyes, observing the assault have estimated another twelve hours of fighting. We've sustained a rough estimate of two, to three thousand causalities. The enemy has lost just over twenty-five M series Mech 10s—"

"I don't care about that."

Cord raises his eyes above the report. Letty is currently fiddling at her nails and grinding her teeth. Her eyes off in the distant corner of the room.

"I care about Captain Ealy and the fleeting troops," she mutters, lowering her eyes to her hands.

She's as nervous as me.

"For one, did the Captain survive the drop?" she spouts.

Cord nods and clears his throat again.

"Captain Ealy survived the drop. Barely. We lost contact with his group when the pod misrouted, striking a building. It took two full hours before we reacquired visual confirmation with his group. They split off about five hours ago."

Letty sighs in relief. She can finally breathe.

Taking that as a sign of good faith, Cord continues reading the report.

"The Hawkeyes have reported as many as five hundred troops trudging through thick bush south of the city. Captain Ealy is with them, and they are moving swiftly, and undercover. No contact from the enemy. Yet."

Letty slides her legs off the table and sits up at the news, pulling herself forward. She looks rejuvenated, overjoyed.

A smile rests on her face.

"That's good news."

Cord nods, his eyes catching the estimated force of five thousand troops still fighting for their lives in the city.

"Cord?"—jolting Cord in his seat. Immediately, he closes the report in his hand.

"Nothing,"

"And yet your eyes show displeasure," She speaks with a sharp tongue.

Cord settles himself deeper into his chair, slouching from the weight of the lives on the single piece of paper in his hand.

"Our eyes may be focused on the mission, but the reports speak of five thousand troops still fighting in the city of Lexus."

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't anxious about that possible mess."

"What kind of mess are we talking?"

His hands tightening around the report.

"I know we had an agreement. However, they are exceeding light years beyond the simulations. Is there any possible—"

"No."

Cord jumps to his feet. His chair slides back behind him.

"Think about it for a moment!" He screams, "Our troops are performing better than intended. At this rate, with proper reinforcements, we can take not just the Eos factory, but we can take Lexus! I could get a thousand tanks or A-MATS to drop onto the city by tomorrow at dusk."

Letty grasps her cup of coffee; her wrinkles tighten around her face, her nails dig into her skin.

"By tomorrow will be too late, let alone dusk. You're getting greedy Colonel. And I know because I'm salivating too. But we must remember the numbers. We. Must. Trust. The. System."

Cord swipes his hand in the air and slams his palm down on the table. The massive table between them vibrates, the images on the screen distort for a moment.

"I refuse. We had an agreement using the intelligence of what we had, and the simulations, which, show that as of right now, they are in the second percentile!"

His blood is boiling. His patience is tempting.

"We still have a fighting force down there. We can win this. I don't know how they're doing it, but they are. They're fucking doing it!"

Letty crosses her arms and leans back in her chair. Her eyes watery.

She inhales and exhales.

"I want to help them too, okay?

"Then let's help them!"

She bites her tongue, leans forward, and presses a button. Between them, a map of the Eos Corporation Factory appears on the table. Slowly but surely, she stands. Tears welt under her eyes.

"This. . . This is how we help them. Remember that. Not by sending more people to death. Capturing this machine is how we help them."

Letty points down at the image of the Eos Corporation Factory.

"I can't risk leading our enemy to our potential foot on the ground. Besides, if we get this machine and then Olivia does her job, then we can change the war forever."

This sudden drop of information cuts the room cold. Silence.

Letty slurps her cup of coffee; eyeing the man who, for the past few years has been nurturing Thomas Deliah's stepdaughter, Olivia, with everything he knew.

Cord speaks—barely audible—still stunned Letty would cross him like this.

"What do you mean Olivia? What did you do, behind my back?"

"I did nothing," Letty says, looking away, her eyes darting. A half truth.

"Olivia just came to me, and asked if she could be of any assistance."

" "We had a deal! You can't just go behind my back! Olivia is not yours to decide—"

"Olivia is a young ambitious woman, who is ready to be a pilot and wants to be a pilot. Everything she's doing is at her own free will, and I did not interfere."

"What. Is. She. Doing. Letty?" His jaw hurts from clenching his teeth. In all these years, Letty has never crossed him, once.

And yet to do this to Thomas, let alone himself, is not redeemable.

Letty looks down at her lap, but can't hide her slight smile.

"Does it matter? You should have known she would come to me once you turned her down."

"I turned her down for the sake of her father! Hasn't this war taken enough from him?"

"That is not the question, Colonel. The question is, hasn't this war taken enough from humanity? And then the next question, who is to blame, yet Thomas's selfishness that has locked our hands for the past decade. Oh, that was a statement, wasn't it?"

Cord is fuming; if he were fabric, he'd blown every seam.

"THAT SOLDIER HAS GIVEN EVERYTHING THE CAUSE, THE LEAST WE CAN DO IS RESPECT HIS WISHES."

Letty, calm and collected clasps her hands together and leans forward.

"I don't care about that disgrace of a mans wishes, alright? I care about those who continue to put their lives on the line for a single cause, to retake earth. And I'm not going to let an unfortunate accident and a friendship prevent us from accomplishing our goal. This isn't about you, Thomas, olivia, or his dead wife and daughter. This is about the future of humanity as we know it. So listen up, Colonel. Olivia has passed her training and is a pilot. Thomas can't take that away from her. And right now, she is on her way to the Floweritorium, and she will get the Halcyon from her father. And when she does, we will have the Halcyon, and the secondary machine back under our command. And then Earth is ours. Australia is ours. Humanity will be saved."

"Thomas hasn't seen Olivia in years. . . And he would rather die then hand over that machine."

Letty catches herself before she goes off on a tirade of insults; raising a hand as if to signal stop.

She takes a moment to breathe. Just the name sends her brain into a fiery rage of throbbing headache.

"Please. I don't want this to start a fight."

"You started this fight when you thought to use the only thing the man has left; his daughter as a tool to get your beloved machine back."

"Think about this. Is it wrong to want the Halcyon back, after all the dead and defeats that come our way?"

Cord, crosses his arms.

"And what if Thomas doesn't give it? What if he doesn't release his DNA connection to it? Do you dream that it was Olivia who died instead of Paisley, so you could avoid this whole problem?"

Letty grinds her teeth into a smirk.

"I have thought about it. But lucky for us, stubbornness isn't blood related. Olivia definitely got that from that man.."

"Look," he heaves with a sigh, "What you say makes sense, but I'm having no part of this. . . and if this fails, you promise me to leave Thomas and the Halcyon out of this, final."

Letty nods,

"I know I should have passed on this information to you, but I did not want to give you the heartache of potentially sending your best friends daughter—

Cord raises a hand, covering his mouth. He can feel the vomit in his throat.

"Please, I don't want you to mention it. Or even speak of it. Until Olivia returns, there will be no more."

"Of course," Letty acknowledges, as she stands and walks towards her Commander. The man who's always been at her side.

"Now, on that note, if we do find more machines inside the factory, I want your other pilots on standby. From there, as long as we capture the E.O.S. Factory, and Captain Ealy deems it secure; we may be able to retake Lexus, depending on the number of soldiers left. Is that a fair course of action?"

Cord settles back into his chair. His eyes look down at their current objective: a stock image of the E.O.S. Factory.

"Let us pray this bunker we've inherited has an X11Z machine waiting for a pilot,"

Letty, nibbling on her lips, squeezes her crossed arms tight. It's a chilling event to wait.

To wait on others.

Cord chuffs as he gazes across the fuzzy images in front of him. He can't believe that Olivia was given such a task. He couldn't imagine how she may be feeling right now.

He can't believe this ridiculousness..

"It's funny. We both want to see this colony in better shape, but have two different means of achieving it, no?"

Letty nods and stands, zooming in on the factory.

"Some could argue that's why we make such a good team. Two people with a common goal, yet completely different paths to get there."

Letty swipes the screen and zooms out of the E.O.S. factory Corporation.

Open fields surround the factory. To the front, about two kilometers out is a small urban city. And to the rear, a flowing river too large for the enemy machines to cross.

"Strategically, the town allows perfect cover to lay traps for the Counter-mechanized Units, as well as demolition opportunities to use surrounding ruins as blockades. We can fortify the E.O.S. factory using the airfield as a hot drop. And once we reconnect the space elevator, we can have a legitimate forward operating base. From there, with two machines, the sky is indeed the limit. I've thought this all through."

"I know you have,"

Letty leans forward and picks up her cup of space coffee. She knocks it back, wipes her chin, and slams the cup down.

"As well,"

"The moment you get word that Colony Saviour is established, I want Hawkeyes to deploy the support carriages; food, ammunition, diggers. And, I dare say it again, I want five pilots on standby for a hot drop."

He nods,

"And those fighting for Lexus?"

Letty raises a brow and clasps her hands together,

"Again, long term, don't make me say it a third time."

His eyes look defeated. She hates this look on him. It doesn't suit him one bit.

"I know. But I just want to remind you that if our leaders followed these same guidelines back during the Colony wars, you and I wouldn't be here today. We'd be dead, lost beneath the sand of Mars when the Colony main doors collapsed and trapped us inside."

Letty chuckles. She feels slapped. Cheated. An uncalled-for blow.

Immediately, her posture changes to show the compassion lost. She lashes out and slaps him, stone cold. His left cheek tingles.

"I thought we—"

She's speechless.

"Are we really playing this game? I thought we had a solution?"

No answer.

She explodes.

"May I remind you, who proposed operation eclipse?"

Letty slams her hands down on the table, spit flies; a savage animal.

Letty raises one hand and points the finger at his direction.

"May I remind you it was you who pulled the trigger on our first needed sacrifice? How many people did we lose that day, simply to distract the machines for Thomas and the Halcyon? Fifty-six thousand, right? That's how many we lost. And you made the call because it was a necessary one. And it worked well. That was the call we needed. That was the sacrifice we needed. It allowed us to draw the enemy away from the missile silos. All those deaths, on a call YOU made, allowed Thomas to descend the throat and drop a bomb right into the belly of the beast. You remember that sacrifice, don't you? Because I do, and you know why I remember that? Because it was the first time, I thought the war had turned into our favour."

Letty steps back, lowering her chin to her chest.

"I didn't criticize you once for that mission, before, during, or after the shit-show. And I praise you for it. As for that mission was successful, and we would have held that damn colony—"

Letty finds herself speaking through a clenched jaw and grinding teeth.

"If Thomas didn't put his family before the mission. If Thomas got out of the EMP blast zone. If Thomas didn't fry the Halcyon or his nervous system. A selfish act that cost a lot of people's lives. And his legs."

"Don't blame Thomas,"

Letty slaps the table as hard as she can. Her face cherry red—a furious tyrant.

"That day has fucked us for the past five fucking years! And I hope, he remembers how he failed the universe! All because he put his family, before his fucking job! If he followed orders, we would have held that colony! We would have held Australia! And God knows we could be on Earth today!"

"BECAUSE OF HIS WEAKNESS, WE—Letty slaps the table—WERE—Letty slaps the table—SQUASHED!"

Letty slams her fist into her open palm, turning back to Cord. Tears streaming down her face, she wipes them clean from her worn cheeks. And while her crying face is gone, her vocals still sound that of a person with a broken heart.

"So don't you dare question my plans when they're in action. If you have a problem, you bring it up with me before the mission, not during,"

"I. . . I apologize, General."

The word General cuts the air; as Cord stands out of his seat at attention. He holds a salute.

"My apologies for crossing a line, General." He says again, sweat dripping down his forehead as Letty, with her legs crossed in her Pjs, inhales deeply and exhales. She wipes the incoming tears of exhaustion.

"I need you to look at me Colonel and understand that this moment in time here is the piece we've been waiting for. That I can promise you that this is only the beginning. That by the end of the week we will have two machines, all the while Thomas sits in his Floweritorium sulking over cocaine and alcohol and refusing to train our pilots of the fighting techniques of the enemy. We will reclaim Earth! You got me? We will reclaim Earth, without the living legend we created. . . and when we do retake Earth, it can be just another bullet point on his list of regrets."

Now that she's gotten that off her chest—there is not much else to say.

Letty returns to her chair and sits down. Cord leans forward, knowing very well his feelings will anger her.

But his feelings, he believes, are the truth.

He swallows his pride. As he knows no matter what he says, nothing will change.

So, the best course of action, is to sit in silence, digesting the communications of today.

"I don't like it when we fight," Letty admits, dropping both hands to the glass table.

And at lightning speed, she lifts her hands—as if pulling her hands from a hot stove.

I look so worn out and old.

What has happened to me?

"I don't either. It takes too much energy out of our old bones, when we need to focus on the mission at hand."

"You're right." Letty says, rubbing her forehead, and reaching for the intercom.

"You're free to go, Colonel. If there are any major developments, please keep me informed."

"I am honored to be your second hand,"

Colonel Cord stands.

"Cord—" exits the room, and Letty falls back into her chair. She wishes she could get sucked into this chair and vanish forever. She reaches for the intercom again, pressing and hold a red button beneath it.

"Commander?" a young voice of a woman is heard over the speaker.

"Can you bring me another cup of coffee?"

"I'll be right up," the young woman answers,

"Thank you," Letty replies, keeping it short and sweet. She removes her finger from the intercom and dives deep inside her head. And it's here, questions arise that she isn't sure she wants to answer. And what happens if I'm wrong? What happens if we fail? Do we call it a decade and submit? How do these families feel as I continue to kill their daughters and sons, all for a dream? Are we, society, nothing more than a corpse of broken bones held together by skin?

And at an almost perfect time, when she finishes her thought every single flash and screen and sound of anything requiring power in the room dies. She reaches forward and hits the intercom a few times.

Click. Click. Click.

It seems another wing in the Megladon has lost power. Which means another colony will be raided.