#
Ben had briefed three of Field’s team members upon their arrival, and now was only waiting for the fourth. Stewart, Brooks and Chin were busily working at their portable workstations, remotely repositioning satellites, making contact with field commanders and shifting personnel from place to place in an effort to close up gaps in the defense grid.
Then she walked through the door.
Everything seemed to slow to a crawl as Ben instinctively reached for the energy pistol in his desk drawer and fired on Zharaa. In his haste, he missed, and a puff of black smoke erupted from the wall beside her head.
“Hold your fire! What do you think you’re doing?” she screamed.
The other three were all wide-eyed. Chin dove to restrain Ben, and Stewart was instantly speaking with Field on his viewscreen, suggesting Ben was too unstable to work this mission.
As Ben looked closer, he saw that Zharaa was not wearing her Uxay. The clues quickly fell into place, and Ben realized he’d just fired on the love of his life.
“Olivia?” he said, lowering his weapon.
“In the flesh, no thanks to you,” she said. “Why are you trying to kill me?”
“I thought you were Zharaa. The Anxeliss implanted false information in my mind, including a duplicate of you. It’s complicated.”
“Just promise not to shoot me, and I’ll let you explain it all to me later. Right now, there’s a mission to complete.”
Ben’s stomach was in knots. He wanted so much to just sit and talk with her, and to hold her in his arms. But the situation was dire, and he would only have time to give her the vital information of the moment. Besides, with the other team members present, they were forced to maintain a façade – no one could know they had a personal relationship, or they’d both be banished from the Program.
After a short period of additional prep work, Stewart, Brooks and Chin left Ben’s office to begin initiating the defense plan. Olivia and Ben found themselves alone.
“Ben,” she said, placing her hand on his desk and gently touching his finger with her own – the most intimacy they could hope to get away with at this location. “All this time I’ve been fighting a battle between facts and hope. I just couldn’t accept that you were dead, despite the lack of evidence to the contrary. After you disappeared, I volunteered to be on one of the search teams. When they shut down the recovery operation, I didn’t leave the moon. I never gave up the search. I’ve been taking other assignments, but then I always go back to try to track you down. I even refused to attend your funeral – I never stopped believing.”
Ben paused while it all sunk in. “And I’ve spent the last three years being brainwashed into believing that you were dead. Then they convinced me that you were alive, only it wasn’t you, it was an imposter. They even read my mind and tricked me into believing that the imposter had shared memories of our last times together. I realize now that it was all a trick, because somehow they were able to get inside my head.”
“I read some of the data on the way here,” said Olivia, getting to business. “These Anxeliss, how are they planning to take us down?”
“They intend to destroy the Program, so Earth will be defenseless. They are going to attack from the inside. They wanted to use me to take out Field and subvert the Program, but now that I’ve spoiled that plan, I imagine they will probably just send their fleet, which is most likely already en route.”
“Any ideas?”
“I’ve run some scenarios on the hardware. One of the variables is their weaponry. They never gave me much information on that, so it’s hard to say what they have. Obviously, they only showed me what they wanted me to know. However, I do have this, and I think it may be one of the best ways to battle them.”
Ben pointed at his Uxay.
“An angel’s halo? How’s that gonna help?” asked Olivia skeptically.
“They called it an Uxay. It’s a tool of unimaginable power. Provided they didn’t give me one with limitations, I should be able to use it to do a lot to repel them. It’s unlikely they gave me a dud, since they were expecting me to help them with the takeover.”
“So, they recruited you under false pretenses, imposed false memories on you, and sent you here to destroy your own people? They obviously don’t know you.”
“Well, I’m sure they’re kicking themselves now for ever trying to turn me, but that’s not going to stop them from trying to take us down anyway.”
“What do you have the others doing?”
“Stewart is coordinating the satellite weapons. Brooks is on his way to the Oort cloud to activate the cloaked minefield, in case any of the enemy attempt to travel here conventionally. And Chin is organizing the troops. You and I are going to stay here at Headquarters, in Field’s office. It’s most likely that they’ll transport directly there to try to collapse the Program. We’ll be here to stop them.”
“How?”
“I’ll use my Uxay to transport their Uxays a million light years away and into prehistoric times. Disarmed, we should be able to overpower them. From there it’s a simple Dord operation.”
Dord was Program lingo for “detain or destroy.” Fittingly, agents also used the term to mean “do or die.”
They headed back up to Field’s empty office, and moments later it all began. Zharaa was first to appear in the facility. She was only distinguishable from the real Olivia by her Uxay, which Ben immediately transported away. Olivia grabbed Zharaa in a choke hold and bound her with a pair of mag-cuffs. Ben found the struggle surreal to observe – two identical women fighting – one whom he hated and one whom he loved. In the end, his love conquered.
Several more Anxeliss appeared, and Ben dealt with them all the same way, assisted each time by Olivia. After a few frantic moments, the arrivals stopped.
“We never should have trusted you!” Zharaa yelled at Ben. “We didn’t realize how proficient you’d become with the Uxay, or that you would turn against us. Axo was so certain.”
“Your plan had many flaws, Zharaa,” said Ben. “The first was ever thinking that I’d help you attack my own people.”
“This isn’t over,” said Zharaa. “There’s more of us on the way, coming in ships. With or without Uxay, you’ll have no way of stopping us. We left three years ago, and should be here any time now.”
“Ben,” said Olivia. “I’ve just received word from the Oort cloud. Thirty Anxeliss ships destroyed by the minefield. Four slipped through.”
“See, Zharaa? We’re ready for you,” said Ben.
“Four of our ships are more than enough to plough this world under,” Zharaa said with contempt.
“Ben,” Olivia reported again, staring at Ben’s terminal screen. “Satellite defenses have picked off all four remaining Anxeliss. It’s over.”
“No!” shouted Zhara and clenched her teeth in fury.
A group of security personnel arrived. “Bring them to Field. I’m sure he’ll enjoy interrogating the people who tried to destroy him,” said Ben, referring to the six captive Anxeliss in his office.
Olivia walked up to Ben and put her hand on his shoulder.
“Nice work.”
Ben breathed out a heavy sigh. “You, too. I’m just glad this nightmare is over.”