Ambush Read online

“Casualties are mounting, Ambassador.”

  The Lord Admiral’s accusatory tone surprised Eva. It wasn’t Captain Russell’s fault. The Hrwang commander pointed his finger and the human shrank beneath the alien’s stare nonetheless.

  Getting invited to the Lord Admiral’s staff meeting felt like a coup. Eva felt almost a giddiness at the time of her invitation at the opportunity to see the Hrwang leadership in action. She vowed to remember everything that was said and somehow report it back to Juan.

  She had nothing formal to wear other than her little black cocktail dress, but that was out. She settled for her only pair of jeans and her nicest sweater. It didn’t look formal enough for a staff meeting, but things in her life had moved so quickly, she hadn’t been able to bring a good wardrobe along. She’d focused on running clothes and other things designed to get the attention of a man in charge.

  She hadn’t expected to be attending staff meetings.

  It wasn’t like she could order clothes over the internet or go shopping somewhere. She’d have to figure out how to get more clothes somehow.

  In the meantime, the Lord Admiral would have to settle for jeans.

  The long dining room table had been placed at the head of the ballroom and other tables branched off of it, forming a U shape. When she arrived, the Lieutenant Grenadier invited her to sit at one of the chairs by the end of the U, the second farthest chair away from the head table. He sat next to her, in the chair farthest away.

  Eva saw the human Ambassador opposite her, on the other leg of the U at the end chair. She smiled sweetly at him and waved. He glared back, then turned to watch the Lord Admiral at the center of the head table.

  The Lord Admiral stood.

  “Thank you all for coming. We will be holding this meeting in English for the benefit of our guests.” He nodded toward the ends of the tables at Eva and the Ambassador. Eva nodded back.

  “As most of you know, the situation on this planet grows most dire. In colder areas, people are quickly running out of food, especially in the cities. There is rioting, street battles, depravity beyond all description. We want to help. We try to help. But we are attacked everywhere we turn. Your people attack us everywhere on your planet. Few places are safe for us.” The Lord Admiral jabbed his finger in the Ambassador’s direction. “Casualties are mounting, Ambassador.”

  Eva watched the Ambassador for his reaction, but the man simply withered under the Lord Admiral’s words. She marveled that the man had ever had the fortitude to become an astronaut.

  “And to make things worse, the atomic weapons employed by the countries of this world against each other have devastated vast sections of the planet. We have some recordings we want you to see.”

  He sat down and the room darkened.

  There was no sound on the recordings that played on a screen at the end of the ballroom opposite the head table. Eva and the Ambassador were situated to watch it best.

  The Hrwang had clearly spliced several different recordings together. Lighting and perspective changed often between shots, indicating different times of day and different distances from their subjects.

  Despite the crude editing and no volume, the message on the screen was unavoidable.

  Humans suffered.

  Victims on cots, on blankets, or just lying on bare ground, stretched out in endless rows, few workers moving among them.

  The scene repeated itself at multiple locations. Most appeared to be Asian. In one scene, it was clear from their uniforms the victims were soldiers. A worker, also in uniform, raised a gun and the recording went black.

  “See the violence against us everywhere we go, Ambassador? How can we help your people?” the Lord Admiral commented, his question rhetorical.

  Dying children affected Eva the most and she found herself crying. Eventually she turned away, unable to watch what was happening. Despite the Lord Admiral blaming it on other humans, she knew it was the Hrwang’s fault. She knew they had started this war, they had caused all the destruction, and they had done something that triggered the nuclear exchange. This was their fault.

  She just had to play her part to help others figure out how to defeat them.

  But for the moment, she allowed herself to mourn what she saw on the screen. It’s what the Lord Admiral’s girlfriend would have done anyway.

  Composing herself eventually, she looked back.

  A silent street battle between well-equipped soldiers in radiation suits showed briefly on the screen, ending when the recording unit was dispatched by one of the combatants.

  Thoughts of the gun battle in Las Vegas came unbidden, and Eva had to quash them, to compartmentalize them away. To avoid letting those thoughts dominate her thinking, she had to focus on the here and now. On the part she played. On what she should be doing next.

  More children were shown lying on a concrete floor in a warehouse. No one walked around helping them. Some already looked dead. One waved weakly at the camera.

  “How do we help them? We have to do something,” Eva blurted.

  “Good question, my dear. How do we help them? That’s why I convened this meeting.”

  The recording ended, the screen was taken away, and the Lord Admiral began to lead the discussion.

  Eva couldn’t get over how bleak the world’s situation was, as described by its enemies. Famine, floods, rioting, looting, fighting, rape. The Lord Admiral dwelt on that word when it came up.

  “Rape. It is unfathomable to me how your people, Ambassador, treat your women. My men, on your orders, have executed many rapists.” The Ambassador’s face turned a little red. Eva wanted to hear the story behind that.

  One of the Lord Admiral’s generals reported on an attack, reportedly by a woman although no one believed that, on one of the Hrwang combat craft. The assailant detonated a device that killed himself and several Hrwang, destroying the craft. It held together just long enough for its AI to get it back to a safe location.

  Suicide bomber, Eva thought, but kept quiet.

  Several other soldiers made additional reports, essentially sharing more bad news. They read from papers or tablets, some struggling with English more than others, but all detailing how Earth had gone down the tubes. Eva watched the Ambassador. The news shook the man. When the reports ended and the Lord Admiral asked for suggestions, the Ambassador seemed poised at the edge of his seat, ready to pounce on any kernel of hope.

  The Hrwang offered none.

  Instead of suggestions, the Lord Admiral’s men moaned and groaned, sounding like whiny children praying for school cancellation at the first sight of snowflakes. They all wished for change but offered no solutions.

  If Eva hadn’t been undercover, if this had been a meeting of human generals and admirals, she would have blown her cool, lost her temper at them, yelled at them and told them to quit waiting for someone to wipe their noses and actually do something for themselves.

  The helplessness grew so bad, so intolerable, that Eva almost couldn’t stand it. The Hrwang were more capable than this. More efficient. More prepared. What occurred now beggared belief.

  And made Eva wonder.

  A soldier discreetly beckoned to the Lieutenant Grenadier sitting next to her, and the lieutenant stood, hunched over, and quickly left the ballroom. He returned as an alien officer stood and described, showing a picture, the remains of one of his soldiers who had been lured away from his unit, tortured and vivisected, his remains left out for display with a crude sign attached over his head.

  “Looking human isn’t the same as being human,” the officer read haltingly.

  “Incredible,” the Lord Admiral exclaimed, but was interrupted by the Lieutenant Grenadier, who approached his side. The two whispered, the officer who had been speaking paused, and everyone waited expectantly.

  “Excuse me, gentleman. And my dear.” The Lord Admiral nodded in Eva’s direction, a slight smirk o
n his face. “There is a problem. Under General Third Assault, we will need some of your units.”

  “Of course, Lord Admiral,” one of the Hrwang replied.

  “We will reconvene tomorrow at the same time,” the Lord Admiral said, and his officers took their cue, pushing chairs back, standing and leaving. The Ambassador sat dazed in place, but he finally stood and followed the others. Eva started to leave after he did, but was prevented by the Lieutenant Grenadier. He didn’t look her in the eyes.

  “The Lord Admiral wants you to wait, Lady,” he said.

  “Okay,” she replied. She waited near the exit.

  The Lord Admiral conferred quietly with the Under General Third Assault. Eva couldn’t hear what they said.

  The general left, leaving Eva alone in the ballroom with the Lord Admiral and the Lieutenant Grenadier, who stood off to the side.

  “What’s going on, Lord Admiral?” she asked, trying to sound innocently curious. He smiled at her.

  “Nothing you need to worry about, my dear. My general will take care of the problem. Now, could you please accompany me? I have something planned that I hope you will enjoy.”

  “Okay,” she answered, not displaying any of the nervousness she felt. His manner didn’t match the situation and Eva watched him for tells, those tiny signs that someone was bluffing, or had an amazing hand, or had a good hand but was unsure of themselves. Anything that gave away what a player was thinking or that he was lying. But she detected nothing on the Lord Admiral. The man would have been a formidable poker player.

  They left Casa Grande, the Lord Admiral nodding to the soldiers on guard outside, and headed for the Roman Pool. Eva hadn’t been in the building yet that housed Hearst Castle’s second swimming pool. The first, the outdoor one, was known as the Neptune pool.

  The empty building was lit and smelled mildly of chlorine.

  They made their way to the pool itself, Eva admiring the blue and gold tiled mosaics covering the walls and ceilings and lining the pool. It was the first building she’d seen at Hearst that she actually liked. The simple patterns and the blending of only two colors, instead of thirty or forty as in most of the other rooms, made the building feel elegant, almost peaceful.

  Ancient statues of simple, white marble stood watch in various corners.

  Steam curled off the motionless, clear water.

  Eva put aside her thoughts about the staff meeting she had attended, her doubts about how real the helplessness she witnessed among the Hrwang actually was, and focused on what was happening now. The Lord Admiral’s poker face broke a bit, the grin behind his expression becoming obvious. He was up to something.

  The water looked nice. Eva hadn’t been swimming in a long time.

  “Do you like the water?” the Lord Admiral asked.

  “I wish I had a swimsuit,” she said. She smiled at him.

  “Who needs a swimsuit, my dear?” he replied. He revealed his grin and began undressing.

  “Lord Admiral! Your men will watch me.”

  “They have their orders to stay away. We will be unobserved.”

  He dove into the water. It did look inviting. Eva decided when in Rome...

  The Lieutenant Grenadier had different orders than the other soldiers. He did observe the pair in the pool. The woman had proven she wasn’t a spy but, just in case, someone had to make sure she didn’t try to drown the Lord Admiral in an unguarded moment. Envy, desire, even hatred for his commander rose inside him as he watched the two swim naked, playing in the pool, the Lord Admiral knowing full well where his personal security chief hid and watched. The man even flaunted the woman in front of him without her knowledge.

  Anger and shame overcame the Lieutenant Grenadier and he watched his master less than he should have. He debated requesting a combat posting. Any assignment had to be better than this.

  Perhaps he could join Third Assault on their current mission.

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