Rupert saw a shadow move on the hillside. In reflex, he dropped, dragging Roberta to the ground with him.

"What?" she grunted as she unexpectedly went to her knees. The light from the crescent moon showed him the bewildered consternation on her face.

Rupert pointed toward the slope outside the fence, "Movement. About halfway up."

She squinted in the dark toward the hillside. She didn't hear a sound. Even the night air lay leaden and still as the sniper had quit wasting ammunition. Rupert slipped the radio from his belt.

"Cutter, alpha. Over," he whispered into the handset.

Two staticky clicks emanated from Rupert's handheld. The signal to continue.

"Code white. Unconfirmed Tango. Solo. Hostile side of fence, sector 4 – 1. Unknown armament. "He stopped transmitting and waited.

"Patrol alerted. Stay put. Out." was the response.

White, the first alert, meant a guard had seen something suspicious. If he - or she - confirmed the suspicion, the alert went yellow. Red meant they were under attack.

So far, the only activity by the Outsiders (AKA Mason's Army of God, AKA the Masonites as they were often laughingly called) had been the nightly sniper fire. The first woman had been the only serious injury, but the constant harassment interrupted the camp's sleep. Each night, snipers fired steadily into the campground. The silence tonight was unusual, putting Rupert's attention on point. Something was about to break, and it was making him nervous. This is why he and Roberta were out here now. As commander of the mercenary forces and camp police, he didn't pull guard duty. But the feeling that trouble was brewing kept him from up, so he and Roberta went to check fences.

Rupert was so fucking tired. During the day, the mercenaries had been training anyone who wanted to fight, including the women they'd paired up with. Roberta and Verna had both proved to be excellent shooters (they'd corrected him when he called them marksmen.) In fact, the more petite woman took to war with a cold-eyed ferocity. She was putting all the emotion from her misfortunes unto the Outsiders. He yawned and felt Roberta move beside him. They hadn't slept much in the last week, and he wondered if she was as tired as he was.

Movement in the shadows again - a figure creeping down through scrub brush toward the fence. The figure disappeared into a shadow, and Rupert guessed it should pop back up about...there…got him. He nudged Roberta and pointed. She nodded and brought her rifle to her shoulder.

Rupert triggered the radio. "Yellow, yellow, yellow, sector 4-1, fence."

"Copy," the radio whispered.

He waited. Roberta was prone, wiggling slightly to dig pockets for her hipbones in the dry, sandy dirt. He could hear her calming her ragged breath.

The figure on the hillside slid through the shadows a hundred feet from the fence and disappeared again. Rupert pinched the bridge of his nose, "You got eyes?"

"I don't see him," she replied, continuing to look down her barrel.

Must be a ravine out there they didn't know about. Rupert grunted. He thought they'd pinpointed all possible cover. A mistake. They couldn't afford mistakes. Tomorrow, they'd take a better look at the terrain outside the fences.

He studied the hillside, wondering what this skulking shadow hoped to accomplish. Was it someone trying to make his way through the Army of God to join the recruits? Since more Outsiders had arrived, no one had been able to walk in.

Rupert scanned the bare area carved outside the fence as a fire break. No sign. Wait! That bush has a weird shape. He blinked hard a few times to clear his vision and nodded. A person kneeled by its base. He nudged Roberta and pointed just as the figure broke for the fence, running low, bent over, and swinging its right arm.

Rupert jumped to his feet, rifle up, and yelled, "Stop!"

The figure twisted, stumbled, and threw something trailing sparks in its wake, which arced inside the fence and landed on the sandy ground about fifty feet from them. "Molotov!" Rupert yelled and fired. The figure crumpled straight down onto its knees, bouncing face first off the fence and finally falling onto its back. Rupert glanced at the sparking object and fell onto Roberta to press her into the dirt.

It exploded, spraying them with heat and a layer of sand. As the gasoline it contained flared brightly, bullets began spattering the dirt around them. Rupert hugged the ground and pressed Roberta into it. The rifle fire stopped when the light from the fire died down.

He whispered in Roberta's ear, "You okay?"

"What was it?" She quivered.

"Homemade gasoline bomb." In the dying glow and moonlight, what looked like a pile of rags lay just beyond the bottom of the fence.

"Suicide attack. We'd better warn headquarters to expect them all along the perimeter."

He thumbed the radio. "Cutter. Red Alert. Martyr with a Molotov at 4-1. He's dead."

"Where is he?" the radio whispered.

"Base of fence about twenty feet east of the corner."

"Roger. We'll send a patrol."

Although the snipers had always faded before anyone reached them, the General's policy was to send out a patrol to clear them. It helped camp morale to do something even though the shooting always started up again after the patrols returned.

He and Roberta had been lucky. In the firelight, they should have been easy targets for the enemy on the slope. The flickering from the fire must have screwed up their aim, or they're less competent than they'd dared to hope. He remembered to roll off Roberta's and touched her arm, motioning toward the nearest barracks.

"We'll be safer underneath that."

Crawling assholes and elbows on their bellies across the fifty feet of open space, they swung under the building as a patrol double-timed it into view by the firebreak outside the fence.

Two men put the body on a stretcher while the other two looked down their rifles up the slope. Rupert recognized a dozen rifle reports from the hillside just as the lead stretcher bearer fell. The patrol went down as bullets splattered the ground where Rupert and Roberta had been.

He grimaced at Roberta, "Stupid sending in the medics. Classic terrorists, making a second attack on rescuers. They don't care much for their own."

He fired some short bursts at the hill where he'd seen muzzle blasts, and Roberta joined in. It was just harassment fire. All four from the patrol were down from that first volley, and the shooters would have moved. Surprisingly, return fire slammed into the dust ahead of them and the barracks wall overhead. He smiled and fired at the shooters stupid enough to have revealed their locations. Incompetent. Some of them went silent. He hoped it was because his shots had found their marks. He slapped another magazine in the weapon and continued with a few more rounds, but the return fire from the hillside had stopped, so Rupert let his barrel cool down.

In the silence, a truck roared around the corner and stopped between the barracks and the fence. Rupert wiggled out from under the barracks.

"Wait here. I'll be back."

Keeping the truck between him and the hillside, he ran to the cab. A lieutenant peered at the slope with night vision glasses through a slit in armor that had been makeshift welded to the civilian truck. The driver looked in the same direction past the Leutenant's shoulder, even though he certainly couldn't see out.

Rupert leaned in, "See anything?"

Both men jerked around. When the lieutenant saw Rupert, he shook his head. "Nothing," he grinned weakly. "You could give a man a heart attack." He turned back to scan the slope again. "They must have pulled out."

Rupert shook his head. "I doubt it. They're waiting."

"For what?"

Rupert shrugged. "More easy targets?" he said pointedly as he nodded at the medics. He pointed toward a low brush line about a hundred and fifty yards beyond the fence. "They've got some holes out there we don't know about. A lot of them were shooting from that line of brush. I'd like to see what happens if you put some fire into the base of those bushes.

The lieutenant nodded, climbed from the cab, and vaulted low into the back where the gunner covering the slope with a 50 cal bolted into the truck bed. As Rupert slid back under the barracks, he heard the big machine gun let go. The hillside exploded into fireworks as sand fountained up from each tracer bullet, pounding the dirt and setting fire to the dry growth. Cries rang out, and shadows scattered out from under bushes. Return fire came from all over the hill, as small arms fire whanged into the truck.

"I hope the lieutenant got his head down," Rupert yelled as he and Roberta opened fire onto the hill again when the 50 cal paused to cool down.

The machine gunner laid a second volley into the same row of brush, then raked down a patch of sage where he'd spotted muzzle blasts. Firing from the hillside died again, and a breeze rustled the brush as someone wailed into the silence for a minute, then stopped. The machine gunner fired into the brush a third time, setting more small, flickering fires. The steady stitching went unanswered, and he stopped. The fires died down as they waited. There wasn't much out there to burn. It stayed quiet.

Someone slid under the barracks. Rupert whirled, "What!?"

"Squad coming," Melissa replied. "General wants to see you." She slid away.

Rupert touched Roberta's arm and nodded toward the other side of the barracks. They squirmed out and stood in the building's shelter to dust off. The squad trotted past them as they headed into the headquarters.

General Beauregard wasn't smiling. He turned from the window where he'd been staring into darkness, listening to the single rifle that had begun sniping again.

He frowned at Rupert, "What was that attack all about?"

Rupert frowned back, "A suicide attack. Supposed to be a surprise. I think they planned to set a barracks on fire and shoot anyone trying to escape. It's the kind of shit you see fanatics pull in a Holy War. If that preacher's got them convinced that's what this is, we've got big trouble. We were lucky this time."

The General nodded grimly. "They're trying to wear us down while they prep for an all-out frontal assault. We can hold out unless they get heavy cavalry or artillery. We've got the tanks." He turned back to the window. "We've gotten orders. The last supplies come tomorrow in a convoy. We're to start loading people as soon as the supplies are up." He turned back to Rupert. "I may have to leave before everyone's up. Only about half of the soldiers here have volunteered for the ship. The rest of us have been ordered to leave camp the moment we hear the enemy has tanks or artillery. We're to make our way to the nearest government outpost." He paused, knowing Rupert understood the situation and feeling slightly ashamed of it. "We'd be sitting ducks. Just like you will be unless we get you loaded up before the Mason gets his hands on some real machinery."

He went to his desk and stared at the big map of the world that hung behind it. "The world's in trouble, Jane. Only about ten governments survived that ship's arrival. The US is one, but I don't know how long we'll last. A lot of the planet is already in anarchy."

He brushed unseen dust from the desktop. "I only hope we're getting from them is worth sending Earth to Hell in a handbasket." He looked at Rupert, "If I didn't have family, I'd join you up there. As it is, I'll be leaving with the troops and hoping we can maintain control of the nukes." He glanced back out the window, "We don't want one of these whackjobs getting their hands on them." Turning back, he looked Rupert in the eyes, "I'm truly sorry."

Rupert nodded. "I'd guessed. The news over the radio at night isn't great when we can get news instead of that psycho preacher." He glanced outside, "You may find it tough to get out when the time comes."

The General nodded, "You look tired. Go get some sleep. We've got plans to make tomorrow, and I want you fresh."

"Good night, General," Rupert said as he held the door for Roberta. They paused in the shadows beside the HQ building. How many lying awake listening to the incessant gunfire would make it to the ship?

"God help the civvies," Rupert thought.

Roberta moved in beside him, wrapping her arms around him. Her somberness soaked into his soul. She squeezed him, and her touch lightened the gloom.

"Fuck it! Let's go to the barracks," He said.

"Why? We won't sleep with that sniper sounding off."

"Exactly!" He laughed as he squeezed her a little tighter. She squeezed back.

***

Mike pressed his head against the soft dirt and prayed Judith wouldn't call to him. When he heard a cough on the other side of the ridge, he tensed up, and his foot slipped, scattering gravel noisily down the slope. He clutched the sagebrush tighter, feeling the sharp barbs cut into his hand.

Fifteen feet away, a patrol from Mason's Army sat resting. Mike could smell cigarette smoke, but one of the others told him to put it out. Again, there was the sound of coughing, and a man's voice complained, "Damned if I'm giving up what I like because you don't. Hold your breath."

"He'll have to give it up soon anyway," Mike thought. Cigarettes and tobacco of any kind were in short supply.

"Youwill be damned, soon enough," a deeper voice replied harshly, "if you keep talking that way. That language is reserved for the Lord."

"Pffft…" the smoker sputtered. "I joined up to keep the space-bitch from taking over Earth, not to be preached at. This ain't no damn Holy War; it's a war to keep Earth free."

The silence dragged on. Mike clutched at the dirt with one clawed hand and the sagebrush with the other. He'd slide through the rock if he moved, and they'd hear him. Like the patrol, he'd climbed the ridge to see what lay beyond but when he'd reached the top and peered through the sagebrush, he saw the patrol snaking up the other side. They were so close he didn't dare move again. The moved casually and loudly, which had kept them from hearing him. He'd ducked down and froze; he'd stay hidden as long as they didn't climb right through his spot. They'd stopped on the other side, dropped packs, and settled on the ground.

The deep-voiced man broke the silence again, "Many, even in this Army of God, do not believe in the Devil or His works just like you, Shelton. But, that ship is the work of Satan, the Destroyer. Men like you will come to believe that evil eventually. And that it must be destroyed before it corrupts us all into the ways of unrighteousness…stealing away the Soul of Earth." He paused. "That's for later, though. Once Reverend Mason gets here, and that camp is destroyed, and the people in it get brought into righteousness…then we'll see what's to come. However, this is a military patrol, so put out that cigarette before I put it out in your eye!"

Shelton chuckled. You could hear someone's foot grinding the gravel, presumably putting out the cigarette. "You been listening to Mason on too many cold, lonely nights. Ya'ought to get yourself a woman."

Deep Voice replied calmly, "I'm a married man and faithful to my vows. Mason has the right of it. When we're finished here, we'll spread his word throughout this country and the world!"

Silence returned. Mike thought about Judith waiting by the car hidden among tall cacti below and again hoped she wouldn't call out. She should know from his pose that something was wrong…he hoped. If those soldiers would just move on. If any of them climbed to the top of the ridge, they'd see the car or him, and he'd have to jump the guy to give her time to get away. He didn't know if these guys were tough, but they were nuts, and that's usually more dangerous.

He guessed these men were locals or from the West. He and Judith had lost a day hunting for gasoline in eastern Nevada and another looking for a sensible preacher in Reno. Still, this many men couldn't have passed without them noticing. They hadn't seen any real signs of danger until they'd passed that burned-out gas station a few miles back. The man there told them about the Army of God barring anyone from the camp. They'd started being careful after that but still almost drove straight into a trap last night. He'd been inching the Esprit down a dirt road with the headlights off when he'd spotted movement on a hilltop backlit by the sun. He'd decided to play it safe and pulled off the road into some cover until he could get a better look. At daylight he'd climbed the ridge where he now found himself trapped.

Deep Voice broke the stillness. "Awright. Everybody up!"

Mike tensed and held his breath. The soldiers pissed and moaned as they got to their feet and hoisted packs back onto their shoulders. Mike tried to dig his boot tip into the hill a bit deeper for traction should he need to move fast. He wondered which gave him better odds – jumping the guy or running.

"Shelton," Deep Voice said, "take a look over that ridge."

"Yeah…" The man clattered up as Mike tensed to fight. They'd get him, but Judith might get away.

Shelton's head appeared over the ridge five feet away. Mike gathered his muscles, but Shelton didn't look his way. His gaze had been attracted by something behind Mike to his right. The soldier squinted into the distance, then turned back to the patrol.

"Dust, sir. Lots of it. On the road. Maybe that convoy we were told about." He pointed. "It's coming fast." He turned away and scrambled down the other side of the slope. Mike breathed again.

"We'll see it better from that knob over there," Shelton sounded breathless as he scrambled back to the patrol.

"Right," Deep Voice said. "Let's go."

Mike heard the patrol crunching rocks underfoot as it moved off. He laid his forehead against the cool ground for a moment while he breathed deeply, ignoring the dust. Too close. He turned his head slowly and glanced at the top of the ridge. The dust kicked up by the soldiers pulsed in the strobing rhythm of the ship.

Mike turned quietly onto his side and stared at the dust cloud on the road. It was coming fast. "Shit," he said to himself. If he and Judith could join it, they might have a chance of making it into camp despite Mason's Army. He edged upward until he could peer through a sagebrush at the patrol. The men had stopped on the outcropping with their backs to him. Beyond them, a road curved down a sharp slope, ran straight across a wide swale, and climbed up a gentler slope. On the near end of the swale, a rock bluff thrust out like a pier, and the majority of the irregulars clustered in its shade. Beyond the rim, the white buildings of the camp were close and yet a million miles away.

Mike watched as the patrol finally trotted away toward Mason's camp. There, men moved out of the shade toward a flimsy barricade positioned where the dusty road cut over the near lip of the swale. They're setting up an ambush. Deep Voice must have had a radio. Maybe he and Judith shouldn't join the convoy but shook the idea off. The only way to reach the camp now was behind a lot of firepower. "I hope the convoy has some," he thought to himself.

He half-slid, half-ran down the hill. As Judith came out from behind the brush near the car, he ran toward her, waving at the car. "Get in! Get in! The big convoy is here. It may be our only chance to get to the spaceship."

She slammed her door just as Mike jerked the car into motion. The wheels slipped on a skin of sand on the rock. The Esprit leaped forward as the tires found traction, slewing and skidding toward the road. He hoped the "Army" was too distracted to hear them.

Mike parked the car behind a wall of brush along the roadside and climbed out. It was quiet as he studied the ridge where the Army of God camped. The roadblock they'd been setting up had to be just over the crest, but he couldn't see it from the road. In the other direction, the traveling dust cloud was almost on top of them. He ran back to the car and moved it toward where the incoming road curved onto the straightaway before climbing the ridge. He parked just beyond the curve and climbed out. Judith came up beside him just as the convoy appeared, throwing up a huge plume of dust.

Mike smiled. A US Army tank was in the lead, followed by a Jeep and four armored personnel carriers. Behind those came trucks and Greyhound buses, their sides so dusty that it was hard to see the logo. They'd be close enough to them in a minute or so.

Judith touched his arm nervously. He smiled at her quickly but turned back when he saw how serious she was.

"Do you really want to go to the stars?" she asked. He saw love and fear and uncertainty in her eyes.

He nodded, "More so now after what I just heard on the hilltop. Earth is in for more trouble than it knows. It'll be a new inquisition if not the dark ages again."

The uncertainty faded until love remained. He smiled and stepped onto the side of the road, waving his arms high above his head, hands empty and fingers wide.

The leading tank didn't slow, but the Jeep did. An officer leaned out, holding his hand by the outside of the truck, with a forty-five clearly visible. There was a "What the fuck do you want" expression on the officer's face.

"Roadblock," Mike shouted while pointing. "Top of the next ridge. You can crash it with the tank. Can we follow you in?"

The commander eyed him and nodded as the Jeep rolled past. "Behind the last truck," he yelled back, his radio mike coming to his lips.

Mike grabbed Judith's hand, and they ran back to the car. He pulled it to the edge of the road and waited for a break in the convoy as he raced the engine. The buses rolled past, and then more armored trucks. As the dust cleared slightly behind the last truck, he spun the car in behind it. Nothing behind them except road and dust.

"Tail end, Charlie, eating the dust," he murmured with a smile at Judith. It wasn't the best position, especially in an unarmored passenger vehicle. He tucked the low-slung Esprit close behind the truck, hoping dust would hide it. A commotion behind them interrupted his thoughts, and he glanced into the rearview mirror. "Not the tail end after all." He smiled as another tank rumbled into sight through the dust. He tensed as the tank's gunner swiveled the 50 cal toward them - checking them out - and grinned again as it swiveled away.

The lead tank turned off and onto some solid-looking rock about halfway up the hillside. Mike was concentrating on keeping the car as close to the rear of the truck in front of him as he could and nearly swerved off the road when the big lead fired its cannon. It would take care of the barricade - no trouble. The tank was in motion again, with the command jeep following it over the top of the hill.

Mike glanced at Judith, "Get down on the floor. This car won't offer much protection."

He concentrated on the road as they rolled over the top into cordite smoke so thick it almost choked him. He kept his head low. No one seemed to be shooting at them, although he thought he saw paint chips fly from the truck in front of them.

Suddenly, the windshield shattered, and his view turned into an opaque screen of random cracks as small bits of glass stung his face and hands. It was like looking through a shower door. He gave himself an instant to wonder if he'd been hit by anything but couldn't spare the time as he was too busy trying to keep the car under control. Besides being blinded, the steering was weaving and twisting. They must have lost a tire. He muscled the wheel and kept the accelerator down. The rear window shattered as the car bucked again. Bullets droned by his ear. He ducked instinctively and pointlessly.

The rear tank opened fire with a roar off his left ear. It hurt but must have distracted the attackers' fire. Bullets no longer pinged past him. He raised his head, punching a viewport through the car's shattered safety glass. Space had opened between him and the truck, so he slammed the pedal down again and closed the gap just as the road started to climb again. He hadn't noticed they'd crossed the swale and were on the final stretch to the spaceship's camp. He wondered if Shelton was shooting at him. The heavy vehicles ahead slowed for the upgrade, but Mike took a chance to glance at Judith. She stared up with wide eyes.

"We're almost through!" he yelled. "I hope," he thought.

The road curved over the lip of the swale and spilled onto the half-mile slope to the camp's gate. A breeze was clearing the dust off the road ahead at right angles so that he saw the first military vehicles already entering the gate. The lead tank had pulled over inside the gate to add covering fire to that coming from the camp.

A truck in the middle of the line slewed and rolled. The truck behind it jerked to the left and tried climbing the roadside at its steepest point. It rolled onto its right side, slamming into the first truck. Mike felt panic. The road was blocked. Judith would be hurt. Greasy smoke blew into the air from one of the capsized vehicles. He groaned and slammed the brakes while scanning the roadsides. The borrow pit was gentle here and beyond it were sagebrush and short cactus. The Esprit wasn't designed for this, but might be able to pull it. Hell of a thing to do to the car, but this was its last mile anyway. He'd burn it before he left it for the nuts.

As the tank rumbled at his rear bumper, he spun the wheel and hit the gas pedal. The car leaped to the right, through the shallow ditch, and into the field. Rocks banged the undercarriage violently, and Mike worried about the axles busting. The engine suddenly roared like a racecar as the muffler was torn off. Greasy smoke and dust blown from the road obscured his view. He drove the car straight into it, mouthing a prayer of thanks that it was there to cover them and another prayer that they wouldn't hit something he couldn't see.

Sagebrush cracked and scraped against the bottom.

"Please don't tear open the gas tank!" he prayed.

The vegetation thinned, and the wheels spun across a pool of sand. What he could see of the convoy through the cloud had kept moving. The driver behind the two wrecked trucks had turned off the road and broken a path through the borrow pit. The other drivers followed until they could pick their own route down the slope, just like Mike was doing. It looked like an offroad race, with a mishmash of nubby, tired trucks overtaking each other pell-mell. Mike glanced at the rearview. Behind him, the tank tore up the Earth while its cannons were brought to bear on the enemy.

Mike focused again on his own driving. About a quarter of a mile left to go. Without warning, a man appeared out of the cloud immediately in front of the car. He dove out of the way, mostly. A booted foot bounced off the hood and into the lower passenger side of the shattered windshield, pushing it further onto the dashboard. Mason must have had people staked out in all this brush. He aimed for the gate. Three hundred yards to go. Two hundred.

Mike's stomach turned with the sensation of falling as the ground dropped out from under the car. Time stretched unnaturally as he waited to hit the ground again, hoping they wouldn't collide head on with the opposite side of a ravine wall. It was probably less than a foot drop, but the car came down badly. The wheel was torn out of Mike's grip and the car listed to the side. They probably tore an entire wheel off. The windshield finally flew completely off as they saw sky, then sagebrush, and then settled on sky again.

He came to with Judith tugging at him, trying to pull him out the passenger side door. With her help, he scrambled out and fell facedown on the ground. The side of his head was hot and sticky, where it had bounced off the driver's side window during the roll. The little ditch that had just wrecked them now gave them some small cover from the shooting. He lifted his head and peered through the dust. The camp gate was about half a football field away. A long run. Judith pulled at him.

"We've got to get out of here!"

He pushed himself onto all fours. "We run for it!" He thought about all the war movies he'd seen. "Keep low and zigzag." He pushed her away, "Go!"

Judith pulled Mike to his feet. His brain was a surrealistic fog like he was watching everything from a distance. The zigzagging came easy for him since he couldn't walk a straight line to save his life…which was exactly what he was trying to do. Somehow, he managed a silent chuckle at this, even though he knew the humor was wholly inappropriate. He tried to keep himself between Judith and the rifle fire but really couldn't tell where that was coming from. So, he just followed her as she ranked him along like a dawdling child.

They were at the gate, and disembodied hands reached to pull them both down behind a pile of dirt. They'd made it!

Something stung him in his side and he stumbled off balance. He knew he'd been hit as he staggered through the gate, his shadow twisting around him. He poked at the wound with a strange, fascinated interest as he struggled to aim himself back towards the dirt pile Judith now cowered behind. He focused on which foot went in front of the other when the ground turned orange, trimmed with brown and black, and spun up at him.

***

The Army moved out as nightfall approached, walking in a staggered column formation behind the tanks. The rumbles through her chair brought Didi to her feet in front of the window. The heavy cavalry chewed up dust as their cannon tore holes amidst the sagebrush and cactus. The dust obscured a long skirmish line where men fell as she watched. Turning back to the desk, she wolfed down the remainder of a sandwich, washed down with cold coffee, and hurried to make the surgery ready.

About half the beds in the open hospital barracks held men and women wounded during the attack on the convoy. It was the first full attack, and both the defenders and attackers seemed surprised by its fury. Wave after wave of Mason's Army had pitched against the fences, charging from hidden positions in the brush as the final tank rode through the gate. The defenders had driven them back twice from behind the berms erected around the camp from piled-up dirt and rock. The third wave, screaming hate and fear, pushed to the foot of the embankments before they were cut down. Their own snipers prevented the camp from attending to any injured or dead.

Shortly after noon, the first of the makeshift ambulances—trucks hastily rigged to carry stretchers—arrived at the hospital with wounded. While the doctor went into surgery with the few professional nurses who had turned up, Didi was chasing supplies and working in the barracks. She was, in fact, the de facto lead in charge of post-op and the barracks. Her small crew of draftees worked through the afternoon until the wounded quit coming.

Finally, Didi had a moment to rest and eat the sandwich someone had brought for her from the mess hall. As she ate and breathed, she heard a murmur over the camp and hillside as if the air itself objected to the slaughter of the day. Her ears started to ring painfully, enough to make her cover her ears. But that had no effect. Glancing frantically around, no one else seemed to be bothered, as if they hadn't heard it.

Suddenly, she was a young girl again standing on the porch of her grandmother's shack, surrounded by pine woods. It was summer, and the old woman read her palm. Granny had looked up without a word and stared into the trees as the sun dropped into sunset.

"Mary," she finally said, without looking at her. "You have the power. You'll change lives and rule people, but you'll walk in darkness." The old woman sighed and looked at Didi with burning eyes through stringy white hair. "You have the witch power. Unless you knows how to use it, that power is gunna destroy you. Listen, now!"

Gramma started muttering and made motions with her hands until Didi had heard a murmur, like wind but not right: plaintive, angry, cursing, yet wordless. Her grandmother stilled her hands, and the sound ended.

""You has heard the undead now, girl." She bobbed her head, "The ghosts of those who lay unburied and unmourned. Those whose graves have been desecrated."

The old woman nodded, "You must learn to use your power."

Didi had spent many nights after that on the old woman's porch, listening to her talk of spells that could turn men into monsters, make the dead return, or pull inhuman creatures out of the swamp to do her bidding.

"Mary Delores," the old woman repeated again and again, "you is come from a long line of priestesses' n they gonna make you great."

During that summer, the old woman wasted away, almost as if her life poured out with the information she imparted to Didi. She'd never let Didi hear the voices of the undead again. "They are too powerful for you. And for me, now," she whispered.

But her strength had gone, and as the sun moved north, she died. After that, her family moved north, too, and Didi forgot about Witching, until now. What she heard from the hillside was the wailing of the dead, just like she'd heard it so long ago. She sank back into her chair.

"I don't want to hear it," she cried silently. "No! No!" Her mind twitched. "Go away! You're dead! Go where you belong!"

Her limbs went numb. She could pick out the voices of individuals now who cried among the sagebrush. Each time, she silently screamed, "Go away! Go to your rest!" Each time, the lamentations wailed off into the afternoon shadows, a soul cut off from its body forever.

The tanks brought her out of it. As they rolled out of the gates, the newly dead wandering the fields started to realize their state and became uncertain. She heard them go and was able to pull herself away from their cries. Grateful for the reprieve, she stood in the window watching troops trail the big killing machines.

After a moment, she turned away, telling her crew to prepare beds, and surveyed the patients. Most rested comfortably without assistance. Some mumbled as they came out of anesthesia. Her eyes landed on a woman sitting beside a bed at the end of the room. Even in dusty, wrinkled clothing and disheveled hair, the woman was beautiful, with satiny skin like polished cherry wood. They'd treated her for shock when she arrived beside the stretcher bearing the tall man who now lay in the bed. Didi worried about her remaining pallor, wondering if she was still in shock. In repose, her face didn't have a line on it. But when she frowned or smiled as she'd done when the man woke for a second and started working on his smashed shoulder, her face would break into exotic planes.

"We were married two days ago," she'd whispered when Didi tried to draw her away for a rest. "I'd rather stay," she'd said with quit pleading. "Of course," Didi had said, wondering what made her join the spaceship. The set of her jaw didn't belong with the other losers she knew in her camp.

Stretcher-bearers searched the slope for wounded as best they could, with snipers still plinking shots pointlessly around the hill and camp. She doubted any would be Outsiders. The bitterness on both sides had turned savage. Only the most mild injuries were helped back to Mason's camp by comrades in arms. The rest were left behind to succumb to their wounds, and the Outsiders suffered heavy losses. Crews of draftees worked under heavy guard to hurl the bodies into piles - soaking them in gasoline and setting them ablaze. Greasy smoke soared high and curled back over the camp. The smell was…morally disturbing. Gas flames over the smell of roasting flesh. "A barbeque gone bad," Didi thought, immediately reprimanding herself for being so callous. The smell was bad, but not as bad as rotting bodies.

The first truck of the cleanup arrived with wounded. Men carried soldiers and civilians into the makeshift surgery while the doctor did triage. Some never made it to the operating table. The doctor passed sentence and turned away to the next patient. The injured that couldn't be saved died sometimes a minute later or an hour, and Didi covered their stilled faces with sheets. As the wounded came out of the operating room, Didi transitioned into a haze of work, comforting those she could and getting the wounded into beds as soon as possible. As she watched a man die as the doctor worked on him, she wondered what the cop who'd kicked her would say if he could see her crying now. Fucker. Her eyes ran out of tears, and time passed in a blur of thoughts and work.

Passing through the ward after the press of injured ended, her balance failed her for just a second, and she caught herself against a wooden pillar. She clung to it for just a moment as things settled back down, then wearily pushed herself back upright.

The woman sitting beside the bed stood in front of her, putting supportive hands under each of Didi's elbows. "Mike's sleeping now. Can I help?"

Didi nodded wearily, "Can you watch over the recovering here? I'm useless until I get some sleep. You don't have to do much. Just watch them, make them comfortable if they wake up - bring them water. You know. I can be back in a couple of hours."

Judith nodded reassuringly, and Didi staggered out to find her own bed. She tossed exhaustedly on it. Had she really heard the crying of the dead this afternoon? She panicked and started sweating frigidly. She'd never really believed in Granny's witchcraft, even in the terror and fascination she'd felt as a child.

She bolted upright. Laying here alone with her thoughts was maddening. She rose and slipped from her room into the doctor's. He lay on his back, snoring softly where he'd fallen into bed, still partially dressed. She pulled off her nightgown and lay beside him, facing him, pressing against him, drawing strength from him.

She finally slept a dreamless sleep. She didn't know how long she'd slept but suddenly jerked awake with her heart pounding. They were coming for her! She woke to a pair of eyes staring at her, and she shrieked. The doctor's eyes smiled, and starlight glinted from them. He'd undressed, lying on the bed propped up on one elbow, staring down at her. She breathed again as the psychosis of dreaming transformed back into reality. She was all right. She touched his chest and tangled her fingers in its sparse hair. She kissed the muscles of his chest, where they flowed into his shoulders, caressing his belly and the erection below it. His warmth comforted her.

Abruptly, he rolled on top of her, pinning her to the bed, and his hips forced her legs apart.

"Won't you love me a little first?" she thought, but this distracted her from her own terrors, and her needs replied as she hooked her legs around him. He stabbed viciously inside her, and she pulled him savagely closer until warmth spread through her. He thrust and grunted, straining against her. Within seconds, he stopped and fell onto her. His weight crushing her until she fought to breathe. Eventually, he rolled over with his back to her, and soft snores filled the air. She spooned against him, hoping he'd wake. He didn't, and eventually, she slept again.

Edmund Mason, Grand Chaplain Commander of the Army of God, was in a mood. He stared at the vultures clustered around the slope that led to the camp. Apparently, the camp's soldiers had not found all of the bodies from the battle two days ago. Half his advance guard had died here trying to storm the main gate. More vultures circled overhead in expectation of more carnage.

"God," Mason prayed easily, "if I had tanks and artillery to carry out your will…."

Members of the Army of God scouted across the West, looking for any heavy equipment the US Army hadn't reclaimed or destroyed when it abandoned reserve outposts. None had reported success. It puzzled Mason how loyal the Army had remained. Couldn't the soldiers see what the Starship was doing to Earth? He looked at the wrecked sports car up the slope, and the black patches the corrupted from the camp cremated his fallen warriors where they fell.

"They've earned heaven," he said softly.

He raised his head from prayer and looked at the camp. Nothing moved within its fences. At least the snipers had earned respect.

He looked at the aides and chaplain subcommanders with him on the ridge as they all stood boldly exposed to the enemy. They had nothing to fear. Those in the camp returned fire only when under fired upon. It taunted the members of his Army. He didn't blame the chaplain Colonel for the failed attack, regardless of how costly. The men were still poorly disciplined and looking for personal glory. They'd gotten carried away in the excitement of trying to block the convoy.

He frowned and looked down the slope again. He noticed how similar his soldiers, dressed in the sober black they'd affected as a uniform, looked to the vultures. Some of these men had been rivals on radio and television until they joined his Army. He knew they were already jockeying to be close to him - or succeed him. He shook the thought off and faced his men.

"Colonel Christopher."

"Yes, sir." A tall, lanky man with a slight stoop stepped toward him. He'd been the commander of the advance guard. Mason waited until he drew near, then gestured toward the hillside.

"This cannot be allowed to happen again."

Christopher nodded, "No, sir."

"I don't want another convoy precipitating another premature attack. The main body of our troops is about six hours away, but as soon as it arrives, take your men and disrupt that road. I want it broken apart so no one can use it. But…" he paused for emphasis, "we've got to be able to get our men and supplies over it."

"Yes, sir, I understand." The tall man saluted and turned away without waiting for a dismissal. The Colonel gestured to a chaplain lieutenant waiting respectfully behind Mason's aides. The two talked rapidly as they went over the hill toward the Army of God camp.

Mason walked several steps, his legs still quivering from the helicopter ride getting here. He damned the aliens and the inadequate shielding they'd passed on to the government. Nothing worked right. The machines left him shaken apart, while his tension from an unreliable engine left him with an adrenaline come-down.

He looked up at the ship, pulsing in the midday sky. The rapture he'd felt when he first saw it had long since abandoned him in a wave of shame and hate. The pulsing intensified his anger as much as it had the rapture. His eyes darted guiltily to John, then back up at the ship. Certainly, it was beautiful, but of all people, he should have been able to see it was the Devil's beauty. Now, it seemed to hang there watching them. It set his teeth on edge.

It was enough to make a man despair. His aides slouched as if already beaten – even those who hadn't been here two days ago. He'd seen bleak looks in the eyes of the men who'd ferried him here. Without tanks and artillery, their disadvantage was painfully obvious.

"God, help me to rebuild their confidence," he prayed as he walked to a high spot about ten feet from the group. He faced the camp, his face stern, and the men gradually noticed his pose. Their idle talk faded, and they waited. He turned to them.

"You're surprised, I think, that the camp hasn't fallen," he began slowly, glancing from face to face. "I'm disappointed you expected such an easy victory. God's ways are never easy. The Devil is a strong adversary."

After a pause, his voice went into pulpit mode. "We shall win in the end, however, because we have God on our side." The Truth strengthened him, and he raised his eyes and hands to the white shuttle. Tiny figures scurried to load crates onto the ramp.

His voice rose almost to a scream. "We shall win because we are right. We are doing God's will. The camp, the shuttle, and the spacecraft itself will be ours!"

He stared hungrily at the camp and the shuttle behind it, then turned ferociously back to the men waiting for him. Their eyes had taken on a new brightness. He'd given them a new spirit, but they still needed some strokes to put the heart fully back into them.

He lifted his right hand and called John to him, "I want to parley with the camp! God has told me that we must offer them a chance to repent—to give up their evil ways!"

He paused, "Carry a white flag of truce and tell them I want to talk to their leader."

John nodded. He turned away.

Mason walked off the high mound, gesturing to his aides to follow him as he marched briskly to the tent set aside for him. He was deep in the midst of a briefing when John returned.

"They'll meet with you anytime you want," he told Mason.

The Chaplain Commander nodded. "Now's as good a time as any. Tell them to gather at the camp gate. When they're ready, we'll walk toward each other, meeting halfway. "

"Who will go with you, sir?"

Mason shook his head. "No one. I'll go alone. They can send two or three, as they wish."

John opened and closed his mouth, deciding whether to protest or not. Eventually, he nodded and left the tent. Mason turned back to the map of the camp spread out on a table. A few minutes later, John was back, breathing heavily.

"One of the recruit leaders and the general in charge of the camps are waiting inside the gate," he said. "When you start walking toward them, they'll come out."

Mason nodded and rose. "Gentlemen, we'll finish this discussion later…if need be." He walked up the ridge quickly. This could end the whole thing right now if he could just convince them that he meant business and that the ship was out to ruin Earth.

"God, help me."

He paused and showed himself at the top of the hill. After a moment, two men stepped from the shadow of a barracks and moved through the gate. Mason started walking down the slope to meet them, the vultures flapping away in a frenzy as he passed. He shuddered and looked away from the abandoned meal, focusing on the men approaching. The taller had a scarred face and was dressed in ordinary clothing, although his shirt looked as if it might originally have been a military issue. The older one wore sharply pressed combat fatigues. The General, he presumed. Mason smiled.

When they were about ten feet apart, the two men stopped. Mason took two more steps, closing the distance to about four feet. The man in civilian clothes changed to a less casual stance. He's the bodyguard, it seems. The dust they'd kicked up settled slowly in the silence as they sized each other up. He heard the vultures settling back down to dinner behind him and nervously cleared his throat.

The scarred man broke the silence, "You wanted to talk."

Mason felt the hostility but nodded. "We have you outnumbered, and we have the strength of God on our side. Eventually, we will be able to overrun your camp. I call on you to surrender your camp now; help us capture the shuttle and the spaceship, and we'll forget you volunteered to go on this journey."

"That's the most arrogant nonsense I've ever heard," the General snarled. "I call upon you, in the name of the United States of America, to order your people to return home peacefully. This is an unlawful assembly against a government facility. You are allguilty of treason."

Mason frowned. He hadn't expected this manner of hostility. "There's a higher law than the government of the United States. And it must be obeyed. We must all live with our consciences. We won't let the Devils from space steal the Soul of Earth."

The scarred man grimaced sarcastically, "You really believe that horseshit, huh?" he said incredulously.

Mason was shocked. His lips tightened, and his heart skipped a beat. No one had questioned his sincerity before. "Yes," he finally said with authority. "I believe it. The facts are obvious. Those who refuse to accept them will discover the truth very soon."

Rupert sneered at him, "We have honor and tradition with us. And we have the Shining Lady. She's a pure spirit. Do you think she'd do the Devil'swork?"

Mason felt the man was laughing at him. "The Devil uses many tools," he said firmly. "I've heard of the witch that shines."

Rupert laughed out loud, "She's no witch, padre' "He put an extra punch on the last word so Mason was clear it was a diminutive. "I don't know whatshe is, but it ain't that."

Mason's temper flared, "Laugh now! But we'll have the last laugh. When we take the camp, we shall kill you all." Mason said with his best evangelical flourish. Mason peered at Rupert. "You seem smart enough to face facts."

Rupert grinned, "Oh, I am. Your 'facts' are questionable."

"Ido not lie," Mason felt himself stiffen.

"I didn't say that," Rupert replied. "You're just wrong."

"I am not mistaken," Mason said petulantly. "I've heard the voice of the Lord express His will. You'll surrender or die. If you do not surrender right now, we will kill the ten people we captured trying to escape from your slave camp. That will show you what we believe!"

Rupert bristled visibly and took a half step forward. Some lines don't get crossed, not by Mason, not by anyone - even mercenaries. Sensing things about to go south, the General put up a hand at Rupert and finally spoke, "For God's sake, man! Those people ranaway from us. They wanted out. They were conscripts, not volunteers!"

Mason took a half step back, looking for a moment like a scared kid about to get bit by a dog. He composed himself and said with a dismissive tone, "They've been in your camp and accepted the Devil's touch. I can never fully trust them." He paused, looking from Rupert to the General and back as if assessing the danger of his next statement. "Surrender within twenty-four hours, or they die."

"How many other people will join you - if you kill these ten?" the General implored, attempting logic in the face of fanaticism. "Men who kill for no reason, for vengeance, cannot claim to be those of God."

"Youwill not dictate God to me," Mason snapped. "You are the godless sons and daughters of evil. You will feel the fire for it."

The General paused, catching his own temper, and replied calmly. "We have validreasons for going with the spaceship. The beliefs on which those reasons are based are as substantial as are yours."

Rupert laughed, a booming sound that echoed from the hills, unable to tolerate the charade any longer. "What the fuck do you care!?" he said with a curled lip. "We got the right to go on. It doesn't hurt you."

Mason's control fled. This man was laughing at him. "You cannot steal the soul of Earth and take it into space!!" Mason shouted as he turned and charged up the hill, waving his arms. "Shoot them! Shoot them!"

Rupert and the General, however, were already almost back to the gate. Armed men came from the shadows of the barracks in ready position and waited, scanning the ridge for fire. Rupert and the General ducked through the gate and behind the embankments before the first shot rang out. The military riflemen returned the fire. The sniping began steadily again.

Mason ran to his tent. The big man had laughed at him. Laughed at God. They would die! He left his tent and waved at the aide waiting for him. "Are the prisoners ready for me?"

"Yes, sir," the man nodded.

"Good. I'll see them now."

Silently, his aide followed him as he marched off toward the small dip below the crest where the ten prisoners were being held. His men walked more briskly behind him than before. He may have been defeated at the parley, but it had given them heart.

The ten prisoners stood in two groups, seven at attention in a rank while two women and a man stood off about a yard.

A Chaplain lieutenant saluted and waved at the first seven, "These have accepted the Lord, sir."

Mason looked at them with eyes shining. The first step. These had been conscripts - forced to come to the camp against their wills. He went down the line, asking their names and shaking hands. As he reached the last one, he raised his brows at the other three.

"These three say they have nothing to recant, that they've done nothing wrong," the lieutenant answered his unspoken question.

"Sir, we didn't enter that camp of our choice," the taller of the two women stepped forward. "We were forced to enter. If the spaceship is evil, we did not voluntarily choose evil."

Mason looked at her steadily, then marched over to stand before her, "Then why won't you give allegiance to the Lord?"

"I don't want to be involved anymore," she said. "I'm out of the camp. I want to go home to my two kids."

Mason's eyes narrowed. "If you've two children, what were you doing in there?"

She shuddered and dropped her eyes. "I...I was drinking. I'd wrecked my car, and they put me in jail to sober me up and then emptied the jail and sent us here. I had no choice."

Mason studied her. She was pretty in a non-conventional way, with prominent cheekbones and wide eyes. He felt the ship pulsing, and his nerves echoed the rhythm. He felt the beginnings of an erection.

Abruptly, he turned away and looked at the other two, who shook their heads. "We're like her," the man said. We just want to go home. We haven't done anything."

"They didn't do anything bad to us in that camp," the second woman said. "We just wanted to go home." Mason felt anger begin to roil rich and meaty through him. "We are here to keep the Devils from stealing the Soul of Earth, and you all tell me you don't want to get involved." He frowned. "This is a terrible crisis for our country, our world, our souls, and you don't want to be involved?" Mason said with a sneer. "The Devil is trying to steal the Soul of Earth, and you don't want to be involved!"

He scowled at them and then turned to the other seven. "What did they do to you?"

"Nothin', sir," one man said, and the others nodded. "They even gave us medicine from the spaceship that cared for our ailments and addictions."

Mason paled, "You carry their infections?"

"Their cures," the man smiled nervously.

"Then why join us?"

The man shrugged, "I want to live and go home."

Mason nodded grimly. His men needed something to put heart into them. Well, he thought, I'll give them something. There is an infection here, even in the seven.

"Bring them to the crest," he ordered the lieutenant and turned away. "Send Chaplain Morse to me," he added to his aide.

Morse, his executive officer, hated the ship even more fervently than he did. Mason walked away, crushing sagebrush as he walked straight toward his tent.

***

Joseph found the peace and serenity of the draftee camp quite inappropriate. As he sat through confessions, said mass, and socialized with the congregation afterward, he wondered why the government had wanted to rid itself of these people. Like the volunteers, they had formed liaisons, but unlike the volunteers, theirs did not produce battered women and bloody men. Instead, these "draftees" (as they called themselves) kept to themselves. Few seemed to need the solace of religion.

Joseph spent time in the second camp daily since Beauregard decided to extend his duties there. "Just keep your mouth shut about what you see and hear there," the General warned through his hardest face!

"Yes, sir," the priest had replied.

Every day at 10:30 a.m. sharp, one of the General's staff picked Joseph up from the mess hall and drove him past the huge shuttle to the other camp. When they would arrive, the draftees vaguely took note. A few who had met the priest waved. Joseph would sit for a few minutes, absolving minor sins, and then say mass for a handful of attendees. Afterward, he often wandered to the mess for coffee and lunch. There was always someone there so, taking advantage of his collar, he joined them. They talked of home, the spaceship, and the Outsiders - the same conversations he heard in the other camp.

When he could, he'd sit with a sympathetic man and woman. She was a tiny woman, and he was not much taller. They shared enough empathy that Joseph felt comfortable discussing the ship with them. One day, as he joined them, they were speculating about what the aliens really wanted with humans.

"I don't think most of us would make good mercenaries," the man told Joseph.

Joseph nodded, "You know there's another camp of volunteers?"

They both nodded.

"The people in that camp are different from you."

The man had looked over at the woman with raised eyebrows, "How so?"

"They're tougher," the priest said, "A lot of ex-soldiers and mercenaries and such. If the aliens want fighters, they're the type. But they crowd into mass and confession almost daily." He speculated. "The people here seem softer, less battle ready…and more self-reliant. Happier. The others came of their own free will, and you didn't. It seems like they should be happy, and you should be angry. It's the other way around. I don't know how that makes sense."

The man smiled sympathetically, "What can we say, Alice?"

The woman smiled and shrugged, "Don't know."

Both paused, then Alice spoke, "You're wondering why things are so laid back here I guess. In that camp, Mayo would have to fight for me, right? And if he lost, the other man would take me whether I wanted it or not?"

Reluctantly, the priest nodded, "Probably."

"That doesn't happen here," Mayo said softly. He covered Alice's hand where it rested on the table. "Sometimes, people wantto do that, but there's no fight. It just doesn't happen. We came together in this camp and can't be parted, even by death. We know it; everyone else knows it. Even those who don't feel it … know it."

The woman's smile eclipsed her scars, "Have you ever thought about being dead?" she asked. "If you die, you risk going to Hell - according to your belief. Can you imagine what it must be like for those committed eternally to punishment?" She paused as Joseph pondered this.

"We can." She continued. "We've lain awake nights and screaming with pain. Not just physical pain either. We've already tried to destroy ourselves." She hesitated, seeking the words, "Our pain is gone. We're not reborn but maybe resurrected. I don't think I've ever felt better in my life. Can't you imagine why we accept? Why we're happy here?"

The priest nodded uncertainly. Even as he thought he knew what she meant, the tendrils of his empathy unraveled into chaos he struggled to pull together. He looked to Mayo, "You said there are those who do not feel it?"

Mayo nodded, "There are. Mostly criminals who weren't addicts. They never faced death, so they don't share the resurrection. But those of us that have – we can keep them under control. It just kind'a happens." He looked slowly around the room. "When there's been those who would'of taken Alice by force, the rest of us – the ones who've been brought back - gather around them and they forget what they're about." He continued looking around at the faces of people in the mess hall. "Some are miserable and violent enough. They talk about escaping. Some already went over the fence. But they don't bother us."

They sensed Joseph's confusion and changed the subject to the heat, and what they'd seen during shifts working at the shuttle. The priest said his goodbyes and started the trip back to the volunteer camp, even more confused. They'd given him an answer that only created more questions. What did 'gathering around a violent person' do? Was it some 'magic' or just the intimidating force of a mob? Had the alien inoculations done something to them? "Was this like what Christ experienced after his resurrection" he mumbled aloud. It was as if they'd been telling him that some otherworldly power kept their camp more orderly than the other. That's gotta be nonsense. Or had the ship carried God after all?

The following morning, again at the second camp, he saw what they were talking about. He realized he'd actually seen this before but didn't recognize it as a thing. In the mess hall, a large man with a beer belly and a truculent face had finally had enough and shouted, "Goddamn it! I'm getting out of this place! I don't care how many sons of bitching guards I gotta take with me!"

Without a word, the quiet ones started gathering around him. The loud man hardly seemed to notice them as he ranted, but his breathing settled down, and his voice softened until he forgot what he was yelling about and started talking of mundane things.

Joseph was still sitting there when a man ran up the dusty road from the main gate, shouting. "The escapees. The Outsiders caught them! They got 'em all up on the hill!" Jostling and cursing, people streamed from the mess hall, barracks, and tents to run down the road toward the gate.

The ten escapees stood in a line on the ridge, with one prisoner raising a fist in a victory shake. Behind each stood an Outsider, armed. Other Outsiders were gathered around on various vantage points along the ridge, watching. Off to one side stood a small man in a business suit complete with tie, wearing an oddly incongruous white straw hat and holding a bullhorn.

The tableau held for an eternity of almost 5 minutes while draftees gathered at the gate. The guards shifted nervously, watching both the Outisders and the growing crowd. They feared it wouldn't take much to trigger a stampede.

The small man raised the bullhorn. "I am the Reverend Ed Mason," he said, the words trembling the hillside, distorted by the ship's pulsing as if for dramatic effect. "I would speak to those held against your will in the camp of the Devil."

He paused and gestured toward the ten, "These who were with you have come to us. Seven have foresworn Satan and his works. We have welcomed them joyously and prayed with them that God will be their salvation. We have baptized them so they will be joyous to the sight of God." He paused, nodding to those behind the escapees. They moved forward a step.

Mason lifted his bullhorn again. "They have agreed to public punishment to clean the taint they carried from the Devil's camp."

He turned to the escaped, "Those who have repented will kneel."

The seven dropped unsteadily to their knees, raising small clouds of dust. The people behind them took another step closer. Mason began a prayer through the bullhorn, thanking God for the return of the lost sheep; the sound of the seven echoing his prayer mumbled weakly down the slope.

"Amen," Mason declared as shots rang out across the desert. The prisoner's heads snapped awkwardly forwards and back as their bodies crumpled grotesquely to the ground.

"With their deaths, they cleanse themselves. They shall be welcomed by the Lord. Hallelujah!" Mason shouted.

A suppressed roar rose from the draftees; cries and vomiting in the mix. The executioners kicked the executed forward, rolling them in slow motion down the hill. Their bodies stopped, folded surrealistically against rocks and bushes like plastic bags blown there by the wind. Mason raised the bullhorn again, cheering, "They have been taken to glory! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!"

Others on the hillside took up the chant until it echoed through the camp. Abruptly, Mason raised his hand, chopping the mantra off, and a hush settled back onto the hills. Mason turned to the three remaining escapees, all of whom were sobbing, and raised the bullhorn.

"You have refused to accept the Word. But will you now let the power of the Lord fill your hearts?"

Two simply stood, silent and shaking, while one woman had sagged to the ground. Her guard yanked her up by her arm like a ragdoll.

"They were addicts," someone in the crowd cried. "She just wanted to see her kids again."

"Where's the Army?!" another voice yelled. "There's too many of them," came a reply.

"In the name of God," Mason intoned, "I sentence you to be whipped and then burned at the stake as witches. We will not let you infect our world with your evil master."

He nodded, and three posts were raised on the ridge top, dropping abruptly into the holes already dug for them. One of the escapees tried to run, but his guard butted him in the back of the head, causing him to hit the ground limply, his head bending back as his face piled squarely into the ground.

He was stripped along with the other, remaining conscious but disoriented. The escapeeswere tied facing the posts with their backs to the crowd in the camp. The guards held their position as three others stepped up bearing long, curling bullwhips. The man and one woman slumped in their ropes while the second woman placed her forehead against the post and braced herself. When the whip wrapped around her shoulders, to a count of one from Mason through the bullhorn, her scream echoed across the landscape like a church bell.

The others on the hillside took up the cadence as Mason lowered the horn. As the whip whistled their back into a bloody patch from neck to hips, the woman screamed continuously until her voice cracked and the sound stopped. After 10 strikes, Mason raised the bullhorn. "Stop!"

Silence settled in. The prisoner's backs looked like meat run through a grinder. Strips of flesh hung from them."

The men behind the posts stepped forward, lifted the victims' heads 'by the hair, and examined their faces. One by one, they stepped back, shaking their heads. The men with the whips stood poised.

A man came through the crowd of Outsiders, whispering something into Mason's ear. The preacher glanced at his watch, looked toward the main camp, and raised the horn.

"Burn the witches!"

Joseph dragged his gaze from the scene and looked at the guards. They stared outward, hands whitely clenched on rifles. A young officer moved among them, talking calmly and sternly, the lines of his mouth tight.

On the hillside, men and women piled brush around the posts. When the fuel reached the escapees' knees, the men and women stepped back and, with a nod from Mason, lit the brush at each post. A breeze seemed to lift the smoke toward the camp, dissipating it almost immediately.

Two of the three remained motionless as the flames began to catch. The woman in the middle started thrashing weakly, legs kicking blindly against the fire. She screamed as flames licked around her body, agony echoing from the hills. The stench of smoke and burned flesh reached the camp.

The young lieutenant jerked the rifle from the hands of a private and fired three shots rapidly. The woman sagged into the ropes as her wail cut off. The lieutenant's aim shifted right, looking for Mason. A volley of bullets from the hillside smashed into the camp, and the lieutenant sank onto his knees and pitched forward on his face. The camp soldiers returned fire.

Draftees fell and scattered, flopping in the dirt or diving behind embankments and barracks until only Joseph stood alone in an empty road, his face turned toward the smoke rising black and greasy from the posts.

He couldn't move. He didn't notice that bullets kicked up spouts of dust around him. "Oh, God," he thought, "how can you let such things be done in your name? How dare you? Howdare you!?" The last of his certainties had shattered. The young and vigorous Leviathan raged again through the waters of chaos. He screamed in rage, more terrible than the wail of the woman. The sound of his anger and grief rose above the roar of Army tanks sweeping through the camp to attack the hillside.

The sight of the tanks sent Mason's Army to hide beyond the ridge. The shooting stopped on both sides, and a hush settled over camp and slope. A man ran from behind a barracks and dragged Joseph into its shelter.

The priest slumped into the dust, staring blindly at a barracks wall. When people spoke to him, he didn't hear them. When they tried to raise him to his feet, he remained limp – collapsing back into his seat. His mind had fled from the awesome terrors of the universe. They finally lifted him as he sat, taking him into the barracks.

***

Mayo watched bombs tear through the barracks like muffled drum rolls as his backside bounced on the hard bench of the transport truck. Dust from the desert floor stirred in surprisingly uniform lines as the small floor charges traced along the building's foundations. Alice laid a hand on his shoulder as the dull thumps came one after the other. Flames shot from structures whose wood had seasoned fifty years in the desert. He and Alice's housing was one of the last to go. He'd set the bombs himself, carefully following the directions. He watched as the window over what was their beds blew out to the awe and surprised gasps of the others sitting with them. The last draftees to leave the camp, Mayo squeezed Alice's hand. Their stay at the camp had almost been a honeymoon. The camp disappeared behind a ridge as the truck rumbled on – all except for black smoke that rose behind them as they turned toward the landing site.

General Beauregard had decreed that the empty camp be razed.

"I don't want as much as a bent screw left for these bastards," he snarled. Mayo suspected the war had actually started for Beauregard the day of the parley with Mason. Before that, it was a peace-keeping operation to protect civilians against a handful of deranged terrorists. Since that battle that followed and the executions, the General had started seeing the Outsiders as a real enemy. As the truck turned, Mayo scanned the horizon for signs of the psychopaths.

Mason's Army had kept out of sight since the burnings of the escapees. Even the nightly snipers had been silent. The General had stepped up the priority for loading the draftees, and the spaceship agreed to run three shuttle trips a day instead of one. The draftee camp emptied quickly, with the miles of tents disappearing first - and now the barracks.

"Why did they burn them?" Alice asked, finally giving in to the thoughts they'd both tried to ignore. He frowned. The fires of the camp had raised the memory to the forefront of his mind as well. Their thoughts ran together a lot now.

He shrugged. "Who the fuck knows."

"If they really wanted to encourage us to leave, that didn't help," she said, recognizing the obvious futility of the thought.

Mayo nodded, "I know. The Inquisition killed those who recanted, too. I don't think zealots think in terms of what works. Just in terms of fanaticism." He paused and chewed on his thoughts for a moment, "I suspect he needed a show for his followers after the beating they'd taken earlier. And I think that's why we haven't seen much of them since. They took another beating after. They're still out there, but he's probably having to work them up again. They haven't done much except die on this crusade. They may be starting to wonder if God really is on their side?"

She shuddered and moved closer to him. He hugged her with one arm around her waist.

They'd traveled this road so often in the last few days as they'd helped load supplies. Mayo knew every bounce and jolt as they drove through his spine. "Almost there," he murmured when the truck hit a rut that lifted them both partially off their asses.

"That's the last time we'll feel that one," Alice agreed.

Mayo could feel her trembling. He didn't think he was as excited about finally boarding the alien ship, but when he jumped down from the truck bed, his knees gave out from under him, and he spent a moment kneeling in the dirt. Quickly, he regained his footing and helped lift Alice down. The others climbed out of the truck in various states of discomfort and stretched. Mayo and Alice walked around the truck and paused as they always had upon catching sight of the shuttle. It towered above them. A three-story house could have fit into the space between its belly and the sand. The pulsing light played over the shape, making it seem to squirm even on the ground.

Mayo and Alice looked at each other with anticipation and eagerly marched hand in hand to the base of the ramp extending to a black wall on the side of the ship. This surreal energy curtain formed a shield that blocked all light. The boxes placed on the seemingly solid ramp had slid magically up an unseen conveyor and through the black curtain as if being swallowed by a waterfall of ink. Now, as Mayo stood at the base of the ramp, he had a lump in his throat despite his eagerness to see what lay behind that curtain. He glanced around at the barren desert - his last look at Earth. His eyes stung.

Alice grasped his hand and stepped onto the ramp. He followed and stumbled as the ramp moved in ways his body hadn't expected. He'd have landed on his face if Alice hadn't been there. So much for awe-inspiring transcendence.

He and Alice squeezed together, shoulder to shoulder, as they walked up the ramp. Even though the ramp was broad, the view was inspiring and vertigo-inducing. At the top, I looked back at the Earth one final time. Mayo thought of the mature trees and groomed lawns back home and felt his eyes sting again. Here, dusty brown ridges stretched away toward mountains in the distance. Within those ridges, the Outsiders held their line. Mayo pitied the volunteers. With the pillars of smoke from their camp, Mason's Army would know they didn't have much time left. They'd have to up their schedule, and the only way to stop fanatics is to kill them. They'd keep coming until you did. The final attacks would be bloody and the Outsiders still might not be stopped.

But a calm washed over him. It was no longer his worry. No matter how many of the volunteers they overran, he wouldn't be able to take the shuttle. He turned toward the black curtain, clutching Alice's hand, and they walked in together.

Whatever the curtain was, it wasn't cloth. Walking through it felt no different than walking between rooms of a house. Once past, their eyes flinched against a greenish light as bright as carbon-arc street lamps. This greenish light had always seemed a bit sinister – even more so as it reflected from institution-colored walls in a corridor that could have been from any building on Earth. As Mayo's eyes adjusted, he glanced around and froze. Dark, metallic, human-like figures waited. When one turned toward Alice and Mayo, they could see something vaguely resembling a human head inside the dark glass of a helmet atop a dull metallic space suit. He could make no details out through the glass.

The figure pointed a humanoid hand along the corridor, "Please go that way."

Similar figures stood along the walls to hustle recruits down the corridor, up another ramp, and into a large room filled with shallow couches. The room was as big as a High school gym—sans the bleachers.

"Please lie down on a vacant pad," a figure said in musical but strangely artificial English piped through a speaker in the helmet. It pointed at the couches. Mayo placed his hand on one and pushed against it. His hand sank into it until it pushed back. When he pushed harder, his hand sank deeper, stopping again as the couch equalized forces.

"Some kind of liftoff protection, I suspect," he murmured to Alice as she climbed onto a couch. "I didn't think we'd need anything; the shuttle seems to lift off so smoothly."

He claimed the couch next to hers, close enough to reach out and touch her hand. As he lay down, he sank into the couch as if it were bread dough. The material enfolded him completely, almost closing over his face. Panicked and struggling, the couch receded, allowing him to sit up easily. He looked over at Alice, who was also sitting up – the same panicked expression on her face.

For a moment, they stared at each other, then laughed simultaneously.

"I think it's all right," he said.

"I'm afraid we'll suffocate," she said with an exasperated smile.

He shook his head. "I don't think they want to kill us."

In this distance, a man mumbled, "Fuck me!" and they both laughed again, feeling giddy from the excitement and nerves.

"We have to trust them," Mayo said. "Too late for skittishness, now." He smiled, perhaps more to reassure himself than Alice. A panel slid over the door into the room and sealed, disappearing seamlessly into the wall as if it never existed.

"Good afternoon," came metallically out of the air. Mayo couldn't see any speakers. "This is your pilot speaking. The couches will nullify g-forces during liftoff. Normally, they would not be needed. However, we are using more accelerated climbs to speed up the trips. You will be able to breathe, although it may require slightly more effort. Do not let this alarm you. Without the couches, you could suffer injury. We will be departing in approximately one minute. The acceleration will last approximately 90 seconds. As we ease the rate of climb, the couches will disgorge you, after which you will be free to stand and move if you wish. Crew members will be with you during acceleration in case of discomfort."

The voice paused and then spoke again, "When we arrive, you will be escorted to ship's quarters by the Azgrotiques…the Starguards who met you here. Please follow their directions. We expect to dock with the main ship in about an hour." After a pause, and with a sudden bizarrely cheerful effect to its tone, it said, "The weather is fair and sunny. Have a nice flight."

Mayo and Alica chuckled and smiled at each other. "I wonder who taught it that!" Alice said as she laughed out loud. The imitation airline pilot seemed so out of place, apparently intended to ease their minds with some familiarity. In this context, it was just weird and made them feel more uneasy. He'd never been on a plane that looked like this.

He watched Alice lie back on the pad and then laid back himself. It was a bit like resting on a waveless waterbed. He relaxed and breathed easily as the bed folded up around him. It didn't enclose their faces but snuggled up around their heads like a hoodie drawn tight. Only their eyes, noses, and mouths remained exposed to the air.

What seemed like a very long time passed. He wondered if Mason was already attacking and trying to force their way into the small ship. He recognized this was just his anxiety finding a place to seed and attempted to distract himself. Luckily, the shuttle did that for him by pressing him into the couch abruptly. He could breathe, but with difficulty, not because of the couch, but because of the acceleration. The couch was clearly doing more than just providing shock absorption to his body; it felt oddly unaffected. But the laws of physics still applied to the air as it pressed down into his lungs mercilessly. He later figured that the pressure had lasted only about a minute, although it seemed to last forever.

When the cushion relaxed, and his body slid up to its surface again, he looked over at Alice. She was pale but smiling with the same wide eyes as a kid who had just gotten off the roller coaster. He wasn't sure how much was excitement and how much may have been nausea. He smiled at her and glanced around the room. Other humans were doing the same, staring past dazed and excited expressions. Mayo nodded to a man on the couch next to him whom he'd seen in camp.

The wall panel opened, and three of the metal-covered crewmen came in. The 'Starguards.' One moved quickly to a man who lay waxen and still on a couch across the room. The crewman reached under the couch and brought out a box from which he drew wires, the ends of which had small cups that he pasted to the man's head and chest. Several adjustments were made to some control panel not immediately visible, and color gradually returned to the man's face. In a few minutes, he sat up. The crewman removed the wires, which snaked back into the box with a life of their own. The man looked around the room sheepishly. Mayo glanced at Alice.

"Was he dead?" she asked.

"Obviously not," he replied, "but I'll admit he looked like he was."

As people sat on couches or moved around between them, they talked warily, comparing notes on all that had happened and falling quiet anytime a crewmember passed nearby.

Mayo smiled nervously at Alice.

"Too late, now," she returned a nervous smile herself. "We'd better make up our minds to trust them and to like it - until they give us reason to think differently."

Mayo grinned. "Fair enough. I think I'll take a nap."

"Mayo," she said his name softly.

"Yeah?"

"What's it going to be like?"

He shook his head subtly, staring off in front of him. "I don't know. Beyond anything we can imagine, I guess." He paused, "I can't even guess." He reached out to touch her arm. "We can do it together." They smiled silently at each other for a moment, then Mayo lay back and actually did go to sleep.

***

The voice from the air woke him, "We have arrived. Please ensure you have hand luggage, coats, and hats when you disembark. Leave the same way you entered. Starguards will guide you to the proper destination within the ship. We are in artificial gravity, so walk carefully. Thank you for flying with us, and have a nice day. "

Mayo stifled a laugh and swung his legs over the edge of the couch. The floor seemed a little uncertain and farther away. It took imperceptibly longer to reach the floor when he hopped off. He moved toward Alice's couch. It felt a bit like trying to walk on a sheet of ice. It wasn't slippery, but you had to place your feet very intentionally, straight up and down, without throwing too much forward weight on the foot lest your legs come out from under you. He grinned at Alice.

"Try it."

She stepped off the couch and gasped, reaching for him. He took her arm and hummed the "Skater's Waltz." Moving to its rhythm, they followed the crowd through the portal and down the corridor. Where the ramp had been, the gaping hole now connected to an accordion pleat hallway with a door beyond. A crowd of humans waited with three crewmen in black suits. Mayo and Alice joined the group as a suited crewman came through behind them. One of the waiting crew members in front turned to the mob.

"All right, recruits," it barked like a drill sergeant, "you are now members of the crew of the Seeker. That's the English translation you'll use moving forward. I am Chief Starguard Baldine. Until you complete your training, you are under my command. You will not see me or Starguards Faxel or Pa'inth without our suits. You will be quarantined within a sealed area. If you find any seals broken, you will immediately report them to me without stepping beyond the broken seal. When recruits leave my care, I want to be proud of them. I will be proud of you." His English was surprisingly better and more natural than the cheerfully reassuring pilot. He was not cheerfully reassuring.

Mayo grinned at Alice as she shivered, "I've heard it all before," he said, "when I was in the Army. It's not so bad. Normally, I'd tell you to remember the drill sergeants are still human. But, here…" he shrugged with a forced smile.

The Chief Starguard's head turned until he was looking at Mayo with unblinking and unamused eyes. Mayo clamped his mouth shut.

"All right," the chief said, "form into twos and follow me." He walked away. His fellow guards hurried the humans into pairs and started them after the bulky figure as it marched down a yellow corridor. Alice walked beside Mayo with a starguard on each side of the marching column. Mayo blinked. A guard had started to count the cadence.

"Hut, tup, thrip, fouah." It was right out of a WWII movie, but clearly not its natural language. It was mimicking what it thought Earth military boot camp sounded like.

Mayo grinned at Alice, who giggled. As the helmet of the counting guard turned toward him, he sobered and tried to get his left foot to land on the "hut."

***

Verna lay on her cot with clenched hands, listening to the firefight. Muhammad was out among those bullets. "He'll die!" her brain kept screaming at her. She knew what it was like to be dead. She had been dead until she'd come together with the big, red-haired Scots-Turks. Warrior that he was, Muhammad McPherson had a tenderness that brought her mind and her body alive again in ways she never imagined it would. She felt like a person for the first time in her life. The only other time she'd felt like this was when she first held Timmy. Sometimes, she wished that McPherson had been the boy's father, and then the baby would be with them. When her arms started aching fiercely for her boy, she would turn to McPherson. His body distracted her thoughts, and his voice soothed her mind so she could live with the memories. If he died now, she'd die again, too.

Verna was sure the boy with the scars was the 'Harlequin' she'd seen on the day the ship arrived. He'd come for McPherson a few minutes ago, telling him that the fighting was worse than expected and they needed all hands on deck. Mason hadn't bothered them much recently, but the draftee camp had been burnt out yesterday, and the first of the volunteers taken aboard the shuttle today. That must have put the Outsiders into a panic.

"If Mac dies, I'll kill that kid," she thought fiercely.

He and Rupert had tried to dissuade her the first time she'd laid eyes on Tomas. She was sure he'd been the one who'd helped trick her that day. "If he did, he couldn't help it," the two mercenaries had argued. And McPherson later pointed out gently that they would never have met if she hadn't come to the camp. She had agreed with that and snuggled up to him.

"If he dies, I want to die with him. Not bit-by-bit afterwards," she thought. If she hadn't been wounded when they went after the Outsiders on the day Mason burned the escapees, she'd be out there with him right now.

Fuck it. Doc had told her to take it easy, but the wound wasn't that bad. The hell she would wallow in the barracks while Mac was getting his ass shot off. She lifted her light rifle from her closet, slapped a magazine into it, slid a few more magazines into her belt, and limped out toward the shooting.

The fight was centered near the northeast corner, corner four, where Mason's men regularly tried to breach the fence since the attacks had started. Suddenly, she felt real panic. McPherson might already be wounded or dead already. She took off at a shambolic run.

A flare lit the slope as she neared the fighting, bringing the hillside alive. The Outsiders attacked in waves. Although they'd blown holes in the fence, the camp defenders hidden behind earth embankments ten yards inside the fence always managed to cut them down before they got inside. She dropped behind an embankment just as another wave broke against the fence, charging through the fence. Bodies jammed the space between them, so the attackers had to weave around them or stomp through them to reach the embankments. As she crawled up and peered over the dirt, a man surged up the face of the embankment. She fired 3 shots, hitting him and one behind him. Their bodies writhed down the incline.

"Nice shot!" She jerked around and almost shot Mac. He pushed the barrel off target with the flat of his palm, pointed towards the fence, and said in mockingly broken English, "Bad guys that way!" She grunted in response.

His brow knitted. "Aren't you s'posed to stay in bed?"

She made a face at him. "Meh. Couldn't stay there. Wouldn't. This sounded heavy. Figured you needed me to keep your ass from getting shot off," she yelled over the din of gunfire.

He smiled, then pulled her down off the crest of the embankment.

"Filthy bugger's'r like a swarm of ants on that hillside." He pointed toward the top of the bank. "Stick your rifle over that and shoot anything coming this way. Then, roll three feet and do it again. Don't stay put!"

"Aye, aye Cap-i-tan!" she yelled with a sarcastic salute. He slapped her on her ass for that one as she rolled back onto her belly and started inching up the dirt bank. She put the rifle over the dirt pile first and then peered over its sights for just a second. At the moment, the area between the bank and the fence belonged only to the dead, but another wave of Outsiders raced down the slope. Ideally, she should scrunch her head back behind the dirt and just fire into the crowd. That's the only advantage of a bunched-up pile of amateur militia charging madly down a slope. Aiming can get your head blown off in a trench. But ammo was also running low, and since they were still above her, she kept as much of her head behind the embankment, carefully sighting up towards a group running laterally across the hill toward the fence gap. Pop…pop…pop - three careful shots - three people hitting the ground, grabbing at wounds. She was good. Her rifle and her head were back behind the embankment before they finished hitting the ground.

She rolled to her right a couple of times and repeated the procedure. Three men were trying to boost a fourth over the fence…all standing together like posing for a picture. She switched to a 3-round-burst, firing twice. The climber got all three of the first trigger pulls and fell forward, hooking the razor wire at his crotch and dangling awkwardly with his head on one side and his feet on the other. He didn't move. The second trigger crumpled one of the other three straight into the dust while the other two scattered – one dragging his leg uselessly. Bullets kicked dirt in her face, and she ducked, rolling once to her left. The main wave had reached the fence. She kept her head behind the dirt and fired controlled bursts down the fence line until the weapon clicked empty. As she reached for a fresh magazine, she glanced at McPherson.

He lay still with his face in the dirt. She crawled to him and rolled him over. Blood smeared his face. She couldn't see him breathe. She couldn't find a pulse.

"Medic!" she screamed. The sounds of the battlefield disappeared. Her rifle fell from her hands as she slapped McPherson's face. His blood came sticky on her hands. "Get the fuck up, you dumb bastard!" He didn't move.

She sobbed, pushing her forehead against his, smearing blood on her cheeks. She realized she was still screaming. An actual hush settled on the battle, oddly pulling her attention back to it. She grabbed her rifle, slapped in a fresh clip, and scrambled over the earth bank. She came over the top firing. She ran headlong down the other side of the embankment, still firing, until she ran dry at the foot of the embankment. She clapped in another magazine without ducking and charged the fence with the rifle spitting.

It was all happening in slow motion for her – like a dream. Men ran down the slope and through the fence breaks. She seemed to be able to take as much time as she wanted, making a nice, careful aim. The onslaught caught her victims by surprise. Some gaped with such astonishment they forgot to fire before her burst drilled out an eye or tossed them like dolls into a pile of the dead. They all stooped in their tracks to turn weapons on her. She seemed to see the bullets coming and walked into their paths, but most only plucked at her clothes or whistled by her head. There was a dull splat as one furrowed the top of her shoulder. Another scratched her leg. She kept her rifle at her shoulder and walked forward, pulling the trigger.

She, too, had a glow haloing around her, but it disappeared in the brightness as another flare burst overhead. Behind the embankments, astonished defenders came to their senses. As one, they shattered the stillness of the night with fire. Gradually, the 0utsiders' retreated. Those still standing scrambled back up the hill, and the fight ended for the moment. Verna stopped at the gap in the fence, firing into the hillside even though no targets remained. As her last magazine emptied, she stood staring into the flare-lit hillside. Nothing moved. Her rifle hung loosely at the end of its straps, hands having lost their grip.

Men moved up quickly from behind and passed her, eyes sighted down barrels. She stiffened and then relaxed. Her people. Someone stopped beside her, placing one hand on her dangling rifle and the other on her shoulder.

Verna looked up at Roberta with hollow eyes. "Did I die?" Verna asked with all sincerity.

Roberta shuddered as she put an arm around Verna's shoulder and started guiding her off the battlefield. Verna let fatigue and pain wash through her and sagged against the bigger woman.

"Let's get you to a medic," Roberta said.

Verna glanced at the blood soaking her shirt and shook her head. "No. McPherson." She pulled away from Roberta and heading back toward where she'd left him. And then darkness came in from the edges, and she felt dirt punch her in the face.

When she opened her eyes, McPherson frowned above her while gentle hands worked on her shoulder. His bright hair was almost hidden by a white bandage cocked over his left ear. He shook his head.

She came alive again. "Mac! You're not dead!"

He grinned, "Yeah. The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Just a scratch," he gestured towards the giant bandage on his head. He touched her face lovingly, "You're a wee bit of a mad witch, aren't'cha?"

"I saw you," she said softly, reaching up to touch his face in return. "You weren't breathing, and I couldn't find a pulse. I thought you were dead. I wanted to kill them all…take them to hell with me."

"I'm glad you didn't." McPherson's big palm covered her cheek and burned through her. "I woke up just in time to see it in all its maleficent magnificence!" He laughed, enjoying his own wordplay. "You know, you glowed like an avenging angel, with your hair on fire under the flare's light and blood all over your face. Those numpty bastards didn't stand a chance against my wee sorceress."

He chuckled, "When they recovered enough to shoot back, they couldn't seem to land a drop on you. They broke and ran like kids who've seen old Clootie hisself! We chased them over the ridge and broke the back of their attack. Mason's going to need a lot more time building up anything into another attack. "

His face turned serious, "But you've seen all the action you're gonna for a while. Back to hospital for patchin' up, and then back to bed."

His touch brought her peace so she could ignore the throbbing in her wounds. Softly, she touched his face and ran her hand down his jawline, landing lightly at the base of his throat. She drifted near sleep.

When her eyes opened again, the doctor frowned and grumbled over her. "You were lucky, young lady," he said. "You didn't open the wound in your hip, and these new ones are just scratches. But, you stay in bed this time if I have to chain you to it. Capiche??"

"McPherson needs me."

"He needs you alive," the doctor grunted.

She tried to sit up, but the doctor put a firm hand on her shoulder, keeping her lying back. "Don't test me, Verna. I'm not kidding. I'll get some wrist straps if I have to."

"I won't stay here," she said. "I want to be with Mac."

The doctor looked across her to McPherson. The big man's head appeared upside down and smiling in her vision. "I'll take care of her, doc."

Reluctantly, the doctor sighed. "Fine. I need the bed anyway. Don't come crying to me if she bleeds to death all over you in your sleep," he mocked, half joking. He looked grumpily from McPherson to Verna and back, then stalked away, shaking his head.

McPherson carried her from the hospital even though she demanded to walk. "Yeah, yeah," he said as he grinned crookedly from under the bandage slanted jauntily across his forehead. She surrendered and curled into his arms. In their room, he laid her gently on the bed.

She reached for him, "I want you!"

"Now?"

She glared at him, "Now!"

He grimaced, "I told the doctor I'd take care of you."

"Oh, you will," she sing-songed at him, fluttering her eyelashes cartoonishly. "Just don't be a brute about it for once."

He was as gentle as she let him be, but her bandages were stained with fresh blood when they finally slept.

***

Tomas stood next to Melissa as they watched General Beauregard open the message from Washington. As the general read it, his face set in grim lines as he turned to face the mercenary leadership.

"Command says Mason has gotten tanks and artillery from a Reserve unit in Idaho. They'll be here in two days or less, depending upon how well they run in the shiplight and the condition of the roads. Those not going with the ship are to move out no later than midnight tonight. After we pull out, anyone remaining will need to provide their own protection." He paused. "Most everyone's made it up to the ship already."

Rupert looked grim and sighed, "I think we can manage to get the rest on board by end of tomorrow. If not, some of us may have to stay behind permanently."

"There is no guarantee we'll make it out either," the General reminded him. "If it weren't for my wife and family, I'd go with you. Damned if I wouldn't. At least I'd probably see some action for a change."

Rupert smiled, "Doesn't work that way, sir. We understand." Rupert looked over the general sympathetically. "You'd better start getting your men ready to go, not that there's much left to do. I think everything is combat loaded, ammo and supplies. Everything else has been moved to the final perimeter around the shuttle site. Charges are set in everything else. All you have to do is give the word."

"Right." The General nodded grimly and extended his hand, "Rupert…as of this moment, you're in charge of the camp." The General extended his hand to each of them in turn. "Take care of it." As he shook hands with each officer and mercenary leader, he passed them a coin. "I had one of the mechanics meltdown come casings. I don't know if these matter much to you or any of us anymore, but it matters to me."

Rupert smiled at the corner of his mouth and rolled the brass coin between his fingers. The design was rough and off-center. He could vaguely make out the artist's attempt; an American eagle on one side, the alien ship on the other. It signified the mission was over. "Finest I've seen, sir," Rupert said as he slid the coin into his breast pocket. "We'll get everybody into the ship. We've cut the perimeter down to a tight circle." Rupert's face turned dark, "You watch yourself, General. Mason's got that road pretty well carved up."

The General nodded, "Yeah. We've figured out how to manage that, I think." He grinned mischievously at Rupert, "Mason may not be so focused on us once he thinks we've left you and a defenseless camp behind. He didn't like you much after our little chat."

They laughed, "Thanks for painting the target on my back." They laughed again, "I suspect it'll be so hard to gun me down he'll do something stupid."

"We can only hope," the General said. He glanced at Tomas and Melissa standing shoulder to shoulder in the corner of the room.

"Tell the company commanders I want them here in an hour." As they started off with the messages, he stopped them. "Tell them to be ready to move out before reporting here."

Tomas clenched the message in his mind and turned away with the girl. Although he'd been in control of himself ever since he'd been close to Roberta, he still had to brace against the murmur that underlay his thoughts. Rarely now did any single voice surface loudly enough for him to hear it - even then, only if the sender was under terrible emotion. Most of what he heard was frightening, and he tried not to listen. He'd heard the woman on the hill while she burned, but he consciously locked that one away from his rational mind.

As they stepped out of headquarters, Melissa touched his arm. She knew what he was feeling as if the bond between them was woven through her own mind. As if she was receiving his messages. He'd felt the touch of her the first time they'd made love and had reveled in the care she felt for him. They'd both been embarrassed and shy afterward. It happened because he'd had a nightmare about the sendings of the woman on the hill. He'd screamed in his sleep, and Melissa had come to his bed to calm him. She waked him and soothed him, and after a moment, the caresses became mutual and insistent. She didn't seem to notice his withered arm and leg nor his scarred face. She'd never seemed to notice them. The only time she'd ever said anything had been the day after he'd joined them. She'd said, "You look like a Harlequin." Then, she'd seemed to never notice it again.

She hadn't been the only one who'd found the resemblance. Verna had been the worst. She'd exploded as soon as he'd walked into the room with Roberta the day after she'd arrived. "The Harlequin!" she'd screeched and grabbed Big Mac's knife from the bed where he'd laid it. Before Tomas could move, she'd been waving the knife in his face with rage in her eyes. She wanted to kill him.

Rupert had moved fast and grabbed Verna's wrist, twisting it back until the knife fell to the floor.

"The fuck!?" he shouted. "What's the kid done to you? He just came into camp." She backed off and rubbed her wrist. Tomas felt her hatred pouring against him in red breakers that battered the shell Roberta erected around the noises in his brain. Instinctively, he cowered until his terror at the forces she pushed against panicked him, and he pushed back. She slumped onto the bed and groaned.

Rupert looked at McPherson, "Will you take care of her, please!" He looked back at Tomas. "Get out of here, kid, until we figure out what's happening."

The pressure in Thomas' mind eased the instant Verna sagged onto the bed. Only he now felt Verna's pain and anguish that had driven the rage. It felt worse than her anger did. He covered his ears uselessly and ran from the room, past Melissa and the open-mouthed Roberta.

He'd scrambled from the pain into the shadows behind the barracks. It was less there, but he still felt the woman's anguish. He couldn't block her out. The only time he'd suffered worse than this had been when the lady burned on the hill. He had whimpered and moaned and looked longingly into the shadows beyond the fence, but even now, the shell put up by Roberta was weakening. Whispers threatened to blow through and disrupt his mind. He moaned louder.

The barracks door opened, and he felt Melissa's gentle touch. It calmed him.

"Tomas?"

He whimpered. She came to him, "Are you all right?"

He whimpered again. She knelt and pulled him against her chest. He rested there, feeling the pain sliding away, realizing that the woman in the barracks was calm now, the pain in her easing. Only an aftertaste lingered, and he rested easily in Melissa's arms, letting her murmured words wash through him. She smelled of the sagebrush they'd walked past that afternoon and of sun and flowers. He put his arms around her, and she nestled against him.

Angst clawed through him as he told himself she was too good for a scarred, twisted boy. He drew away, and she looked at him through wide eyes. Then, she frowned. "The woman says you were the Harlequin who lured her into the arms of another man, which made her husband send her to the ship. Rupert thinks you may have called to him in dreams before the ship asked for recruits."

He shifted uneasily. What did he remember of those long days and nights before Roberta had come and freed him? The voices had only sometimes created words and sentences in his mind.

He looked away uneasily, "Maybe. I don't know." He told her of the wind the ship had sent into his mind with shadowy images. "I could have been the messenger," he said.

"Why would they do that to Verna?"

He shrugged, "Why would they send the wind into my head?"

The barracks door opened, sending a rectangle of light into the dust. Rupert peered into the dark. "Tomas? Melissa? You out here?"

Tomas nodded and then, realizing they couldn't be seen in the dank, replied aloud, "Yes. Over here."

Rupert came to them and squatted in front of them. "She's over her anger," he said softly. "She thought you were the Harlequin who called her…."

Tomas nodded at Melissa, "She told me."

Rupert nodded and waited.

"I could have been," Tomas said as he looked down. "If I am, I didn't do it deliberately. I was a faucet they poured their messages through. Like a wind. If Roberta hadn't come, they'd still be doing it." He looked up at Rupert. "Why did they use me?"

Rupert looked at him somberly, then shrugged, "Why does Roberta shine in a crisis?" He held out his hands to them. "Come on, let's go back inside. Verna's calmed down and won't attack you again … even if she is convinced you're the Harlequin who called her. Muhammad convinced her it was their fate no matter what the cause."

They followed his gaze when Rupert paused to look up at the sky. Stars seemed to pour in a bright stream across the night. When Rupert looked down, his face had softened slightly. He seemed awed. "Something wants something out there - awfully bad. And we are it." He frowned at Tomas. "You don't know what it is?"

Tomas shook his head. "I couldn't understand most of what they sent through me. It was like the sound of an ocean with only a few words that made sense."

Tomas' thoughts returned to the real world as he wondered why the General had also picked him as a messenger. At the first command post, the officers listened to his report and sent runners to their squad leaders. In near silence, the soldiers prepared to move out. After the final orders were delivered, Tomas watched the preparations for a moment before returning to HQ, where he and Melissa curled up on the couch outside the General's office and waited for instructions.

Around midnight, the General made a final inspection of his officers. Rupert stood with Roberta at his side.

"It's all yours, Cutter. Good luck! Take good care of the kids," he smiled at Tomas and Melissa.

"Good luck to you, General," Rupert replied firmly. "You may need it worse than we do. We just have to hold them off. You have to go through them."

"Don't worry about us," the General said. "They don't have their cavalry yet, and we've got enough armor to force our way out. Then, they'll be coming after you."

Rupert nodded. "I don't think they'll hit us until after you are gone. Try to thin them out a bit for us, yeah?"

The General smirked and nodded.

"It'll be nice to see my wife again," the General said with tired eyes.

He dismissed his officers, and Rupert watched his APC drive off. He, Roberta, Tomas, and Melissa stood on the HQ office veranda and watched the caravan roll through the camp gates. In the starlight, the first tank had reached the crest of the hill overlooking the Outsiders' camp before rifle and small caliber automatic weapons began cracking and brightening the night with spears of fire. "Let's get out of sight," Rupert commanded, "in case someone gets the idea to shoot in this direction."

The sound of small arms fire was broken by the "crump, crump" of the tanks returning the fire. The last of the convoy roared over the crest into heavy fighting. An explosion near the camp rocked the ground as sheets of flame reached into the sky, illuminating the volunteers moving stealthily through the camp toward the shuttle perimeter. Rupert grit his jaw - and Tomas winced as a roar of emotions from the battlefield burned through his mind. Melissa came up behind him, putting her arms around him, which eased the voices from him. The battle ended, and in the sudden silence, Tomas was sure he heard a truck roar a long way off.

"Some of them made it," he said to Rupert.

The mercenary nodded and looked at his team. "Let's get to the final perimeter." They walked past the last of the men, setting the explosive charges in the barracks as they began the long walk toward the shuttle landing site. An owl hooted from the quiet hillside.

As Tomas and Melissa followed Rupert and Roberta away from the camp, the first of the barracks charges began to burn - turning the night into a Hellscape. They watched it burn through the long, dark hours. Midway through the dark morning hours, a radioman brought a message to Rupert. He read it, then crumpled the paper and glanced at those around him. "They made it. With heavy casualties. General Beauregard was one of them killed." The night came down heavier on their shoulders as they stared into the flames of what had been their home for these long weeks - watching for any indicator that Mason's Outsiders were coming after them. But nothing came until dawn.

The Outsiders surged over the ridge, drifting through the smoke and fire of the destroyed camp. The first of them ran up against the perimeter as recruits continued to hurriedly board the shuttle. Bullets careened harmlessly off the shuttle, the first target for many of the attackers. Even the black curtain seemed to deflect bullets aimed for the ship's interior. But a few recruits fell on the ramp before Rupert's mercenaries drove them into cover. When the shuttle lifted, the enemy stormed the embankments. They forced them back, but there would be fewer to board the shuttle by the end of the day.

Tomas and Melissa carried ammunition, supplies, and messages around the perimeter throughout the long morning. Mason kept up a steady fire, appearing desperate when the shuttle returned. They attacked with a ferocity that carried them to the top of the defenses until they were finally thrown back with hand-to-hand combat. Rupert's knife and forearm were soaked with blood before the Outsiders fell back into cover again.

A deep silence fell on the battlefield. Tomas heard the murmur of voices again in his mind and realized that the intensity of battle had driven them from his consciousness. He welcomed them back almost as friends.

Melissa appeared out of smoke and dust. She looked beautiful, although her hair was snarled and dusty and her face grimy, where she'd brushed sweat away with dirty hands. "Rupert says we go this next liftoff."

"Is Roberta going?"

She shook her head. "No. But Rupert says we have to go. The only people who will remain behind are those who can shoot or help the wounded."

"I'll stay with the wounded."

She shook her head. "You can't, Tomas. You can't. You've got to go up with me!" She looked at him wide-eyed, "I'm scared. "

"But, my mind. If I leave Roberta, it'll be out of control again."

She took his hand, "I'll help you. Roberta will be up with the last flight. It will only be for a little while."

She looked lost and scared, very much like a child—like a scared sibling if he'd had one. But he didn't love her like he would have a sister. He nodded, "All right."

She led him to Rupert and Roberta and told them they'd go aboard. The older couple nodded. Briefly, Roberta hugged Tomas, then turned away to scan the dusty land around them before turning back. "Go now before they attack again. The ramp-up is so exposed."

Tomas nodded, and they ran toward the ship. At the top of the ramp, he paused a moment, listening to the murmur of his voices and the strange, eerie silence that lay over the land. Then, as Melissa tugged at his arm, they ducked through the curtain.

Tomas stood frozen. The voices—the murmur that had been with him for all these years—were gone. He was alone—a single soul in the great hall of the universe—sealed alone within himself. It was unbearable! His hands clawed at the sides of his head, and he screamed. The sound echoed through the universe and came thunderously back as cold black shadows, filled with emptiness, that drove him to hide in a corner of his brain.

He fainted.

***

Roberta pivoted and knelt at the top of the ramp to cover Rupert, McPherson, and Verna, still at the foot of the gangway. The smaller woman still favored her non-bandaged shoulder and leg, but her injuries didn't stop her from shooting. The doctor and his aid remained in the field, bent over a wounded man.

"Hurry!" Roberta called.

A hundred yards away, the attackers went to ground, gearing for a final push to get inside the shuttle. She was glad for the rest. After Tomas and Melissa boarded the ship along with most of the remaining pilgrims, they'd tightened the perimeter to a circle about 500 yards around the landing site and waited. The Outsiders, too, had been waiting. They'd taken a mauling so far trying to attack their entrenched positions. Their bodies lay all around the defensive ring as smoke drifted over the field from the still-smoldering barracks. The screaming air announced the shuttle's return, breaking the silence of the battlefield.

The Outsiders rose from the sagebrush and ran, bellowing, toward the ship. The defenses held as the ship landed, then dissolved slowly, as planned. Rupert moved around the ring, barking at segments of the line to break away up the ramp and through the curtain. An ordered retreat. The perimeter shrank, closing in on the ship, as soldiers ran from the line to the foot of the ramp to defend those running up to the ship - only to be replaced by the next squad as they themselves ran up the incline to the curtain. The bodies of those who make it were carried gruesomely by the conveyor action of the ramp and inside – like a meat processing plant.

Now, there were only seven remaining. Rupert, Roberta, Mac, and Verna had been ready to make their charge up the gangway when they saw the doctor and his nurse working on the fallen man. They wouldn't survive long if they didn't get him on the brow to the ship. Mason wasn't leaving anyone alive.

Roberta kept an eye on Outsider positions. They were damned exposed from the front, although the ramp and ship shielded them from attackers to the rear. The nurse was called Didi, if Roberta remembered correctly. She watched the doctor tenderly and with the familiarity of a close relationship. He was brusque to her. Roberta wondered what kind of a relationship they had.

Movement in the sagebrush. "Hurry up!" Roberta shouted. "They're getting ready to charge again."

Another movement. She fired on it, and it stopped. Roberta looked at the doctor as he climbed to his feet, looking down on the dead man. He yanked the woman – Didi - up and began running toward the ramp. Six left, and the Outsiders were building their courage for a final charge. She began firing continuous controlled bursts into the sagebrush, warning the enemy to keep their heads down. But they swarmed out of the dust toward the ship, shooting. Bullets whined by Roberta, but they were shooting wildly on the run. She swapped a clip as her barrel grew hot. Below, she heard rapid firing from Rupert, Muhammad, and Verna.

Roberta sent a stream of single shots toward the far end of a group that had gathered for a quick assault. Several fell, and the rest scattered. She grinned mirthlessly and kept firing as she moved aside to give Verna and McPherson room to back up the ramp. Rupert still stood on the ground at the end. Roberta fired at another group running toward them. The attackers dropped into cover, and she hunted more targets. She felt as calm as she had on that distant afternoon when they had been stopped by Tomas' village.

She glanced down at Rupert just as Doc's brains burst from the rear of his head. He'd turned to look back, and the bullet must have caught him between the eyes. Roberta grimaced and looked away as he crumpled at the foot of the ramp. When she looked back, Didi kneeled over the dead man, pulling at his body.

Roberta glanced at the black, veiled doorway, wondering why the space beings hadn't come to help. They were supposed to be mercenaries, weren't they?! She brought her attention back to the battle. Her rifle clicked, and she automatically fumbled at her belt for a magazine. Last one. She glanced at the foot of the ramp. Rupert fired rounds over Didi and the doctor. The bolt on Verna's rifle was locked open. She was out. The smaller woman glanced up the ramp, and Roberta nodded toward the black curtain.

"Rupert, let's go!" If he didn't move it, they'd both die.

Rupert looked at the attackers. Too close.

"Rupert!"

He reacted to the bark of a command and looked to Roberta. Calmness held her full charge, her shining reflected on the curving hull of the shuttle like a second sun. She looked fearless.

From Roberta's perspective, the only thing that frightened her now was the thought of dying this close to the stars. She stared down at the foot of the gangway.

"NOW, Rupert!"

Rupert glanced at the attackers and back at her with his eyebrows raised. She looked over the battlefield, only to see the Outsiders had stopped attacking and were staring at the ship. It was silent, except for the moaning of several of the enemy soldiers, "The Shining Lady!" One or two had dropped to their knees. Roberta glanced behind her, where she saw Verna and McPherson standing outside the veil, staring at her. She looked back at the attackers. Their faces had the shapeless brilliance of an overexposed photo. She lifted her empty rifle, following a script that seemed written in her brain, and threw it at them.

"They'll attack again in a moment," she yelled to Rupert in a calm voice, "Bring the woman. The man is dead," she ordered him.

Rupert managed to crack a cocked smile, grabbed Didi by the collar, and threw her over his shoulder into a fireman's carry. She fought as he dragged her up the slope – the three of them disappearing through the veil after Verna and McPherson.

***

Standing in the well-lit room, Roberta felt a moment of cold disorientation. She blinked and glanced outside again. Apparently, the curtain only blocked light one way. The attackers emerged from their stupor and raced toward the ship again. Bullets bounced off the hull but didn't penetrate the veil. The ramp began to retract and swing into the hull, finally blocking their final view of Earth.

Muhammad looked curiously around the room and then back at Rupert. "I'm glad someone needs me." He took in the view of the room again. "Is anybody home?" he yelled.

A figure in a black metal suit came into the room and surveyed them. They eyed it warily, trying to see what lay behind the smoky glass of the faceplate. Roberta could see no movement as a metallic voice shot out from it.

"You fought a good fight."

It looked at Roberta, and its stance altered slightly - into what might have been deference. "I am sorry we could not help you. All the actions to bring you here had to be your own. We were prevented from helping."

Had it read her mind out there?

Rupert smiled at her. "We made it because of you. My God, you lit up like a searchlight. They about shit themselves."

She nodded hesitantly. The light was terrifying to her, although she wasn't sure why. It always showed up only when they needed it.

The metallic figure turned away, "Please follow me." With its back turned, the metallic voice no longer seemed centered in its helmet. It sounded more like a long-distance telephone connection.

"The captain wishes to lift off now. All passengers must be in couches," the metallic voice continued as they fell in line behind it. Rupert still carried the now silent Didi.

It led them down a quiet corridor into the big room filled with padded beds. A few moments later, they left Earth.

***

Epilog 1

Silence lay like fog on the battleground, broken only by the vultures gathered in black packs, quarreling over choice bits. A lizard peered blankly at the black-garbed men walking soberly over the battlefield, then skittered away on its business.

The ground beneath where the shuttle had been lay crushed. The men paused and looked around, their faces remaining empty even as they smiled, or frowned. Some counted this a victory, as they now controlled the battlefield. Others felt they'd lost. All were drained. The shuttle had risen free for its last flight without them. The spaceship still rode in orbit above their heads, pulsing its strobe light across Earth, but now it was an unobtainable enemy they mostly ignored.

Mason looked up at the sky. While part of him still felt the same awe he had when the ship first arrived, he was only conscious of the fear. The ship now held the Soul of Earth. He had been so sure God had called him to drive it off or even capture it. Instead, it strobed tauntingly above in exultation. He felt as dazed as the others looked. Capturing the ship had been his goal for months, yet no matter how he swore and cursed at it in the name of all the Holy God, the ship remained out of his reach.

He had been unworthy. He should have died with Sarah. Uneasily, watched John walking near him, alert to his needs, as usual. Mason shuddered.

"It was not my fault, Lord. The starship made me do it. It was their influence - a sign of their evil. Forgive me." He was bereft. The solace and feeling of fullness such prayer had brought in the past was gone. His stomach growled, and a sagebrush irritatingly rubbed his leg as he looked at the battlefield.

"This," he thought, "is now the world, scarred by the ship. In a few years, however, no one will know this was where the shuttle set down. The desert will reclaim the burned camps and fill the marks from the ship."

Idly, he stared at some bones scattered on a patch of ground in the near distance. His fallen had been buried, but the bodies of dead volunteers had been left untouched. Whatever had stripped this body already had done a good job, quickly. Only small strips of flesh clung to the skeleton, which was beginning to dry. A skull grinned wetly up at him, a patch of hair hanging down over what would have been an ear. Staring.

Once, he would have been horrified. Now, he was just fascinated. It seemed to mock him, "Your efforts were futile from the start, Mason. Most who wanted to go made it to the ship. Why did you keep me from it? Why did we follow you? What was the use?"

The question was silenced as a passing man kicked the skull callously out of his path, dislodging the jaw.

"What was the use of any of it?" Mason answered to himself. "What was the use of the spaceship coming to Earth? Why did God let the Devil win this round?" He'd been so sure his righteous would win. Instead, the ship will leave Earth trying to claw its way to normality, its institutions crushed. Government, power, communications will all take new courses, if they can, if they have time. In a few generations, the ship will be history, but its impact will never leave us. New governments will rise to bring order from chaos, or enslave, or both.

"If it had been a nuclear war, we'd have only ourselves to blame. We could deal with that. Instead, we welcomed a starship, and it proved our destroyer." He looked up at it again. The pulsing light reflected off the tops of cumulus clouds, blending it into one bright light. He felt the vibrations all the way to the soles of his feet.

He waved his men closer. This was a hard loss. A seemingly final one. It was time to reassure them and assert himself. He looked at the black-uniformed men and smiled grimly at recognizing just how much they resembled the vultures. There was a lot of death and destruction out there that would need his vultures to recycle the world.

"Gentlemen," he said slowly. "This was only the first battle, not the war. As I have said before, God's ways are difficult. We still face the destruction the ship left on Earth. Already, men straggle away only to find their homes destroyed or their families gone. Government has broken down leaving famine and pestilence to ride free. Men will revert to the savage. Only a strong hand will keep our world and our country alive. We are an Army. That's more than most have today. Let us go about our duty to keep order!"

He turned toward the cars waiting to take them back to camp

"Sir!" he stopped and turned back.

Yes?"

"What about the ship? Are we giving up on her?"

He shrugged. "What more can we do? Missiles can't reach her, nor do we have a way to fight in space." He paused.

"No. We must now bring God's order back to Earth. We must consider that we have only lost the first round."

He glanced up. The pulsing light gleamed from his face, making it appear outlined with fire. He felt his skin crawl in response to it while his heart pounded. So different, he mused, from his first response.

Abruptly, the feeling stopped. Mason, who had closed his eyes with the sensations – looked abruptly up. The ship had silently disappeared. Only the sun now rode across the sky - its white, steady warmth the only light that touched him. No pulsing. He felt the flesh of his face smooth as the sun's rays burned into it. Sweat rose from his pores and evaporated into the dry air as if the natural light was trying to cleanse him – purge all that had passed from his flesh.

The emotional high that Mason had been riding since the ship's arrival abruptly collapsed. He felt alone. He slowly lowered his gaze, ignoring the excited voices around him, to look at the battlefield with new eyes. Nothing but death and destruction. He scowled at the vultures as they fed on the carrion, finally lunging at one nearby group. The ungainly birds squalled and rose briefly into the air, only to settle back to the ground a few feet away as he shook his fist at them. He turned and ran awkwardly at another nearby flock. He swore as they casually lifted just out of harm's way. He swore at them, feeling like a dog chasing pigeons in the park.

A hand touched his arm, and his head snapped around to see the face of a concerned aide. He angrily pulled his arm out of the gentle grip.

"I'm fine. Leave me alone!"

He turned back. The vultures were already feeding at the bodies again. He took two quick steps and stopped. What was the use? God, he felt so empty. He sagged toward the men, turning his face upward.

"Why have you abandoned me?"

The sky remained bright, brassy blue, and he realized it had not been God who had filled him before – but the essence of the ship. The ship's light is what he had taken to be his call from God. It led him into a trap just as surely as those souls that had gone with it. He'd become death and the destroyer because of the ship. Men had died. His men had died. He wore their deaths like weights around his neck, and it wearied him. He reached out blindly and braced himself against the young officer as a wave of shame dizzied him and turned his groin to quivering jelly. He shivered despite the heat.

"Reverend?"

Only one man had continued calling him "reverend" instead of "chaplain." He opened his eyes and looked into John's face. A fresh wave of shame and guilt washed through him, and he reached toward the man.

"John," he quavered, "I was the man with Sarah."

John grimaced, "I know." He looked steadily at Mason. "She didn't die right away, you know. I dug her out from under the stones. She died a few minutes later in my arms. Before she died, she named you. But I trusted you. I thought it was God's will."

"You're a simpleton, John." Mason shook his head. "I was only a guilty man protecting himself."

"I know that now," John said as he brought the heavy, black, forty-five caliber pistol. He raised it until Mason looked deep into its black bore. John held it there momentarily, then lowered it until to point at Mason's chest.

"Revenge, John?" He said calmly. He deserved to die.

John shook his head, "No. That was all the ship's fault. I felt it the same way you did. I felt it when the ship left, too. That it's over. This isn't for the past, but the future. It's got to end here. Enough killing."

John gestured to the men now standing around them, gaping. "None of these people can hold the Army together. I can't. You're the only one who might have had that chance. But there has been enough bloodshed 'in God's name.' "He paused and looked over the faces in the gathering crowd.

They had tensed, and one or two had half-raised weapons – unsure which direction to go. "Don't shoot me," John warned gravely. "I'll still kill the reverend before I drop. You won't get a shot off in time to stop me."

He glanced quickly at Mason, seeing him frozen in the same defeated stance. Watching the crowd, his weapon unwavering on his chest, he asked Mason, "Will you disband the Army and go home in silence?"

"That's what I want," Mason thought. He gritted against a burst of laughter that he held tightly in his chest. Instead, he said, "No. These men need me. I am responsible for them, and I must hold to that responsibility. The world needs us."

John's finger tightened. Mason saw the tension easing back on the trigger. John's eyes flickered but didn't soften. John would shoot him. Mason hoped for the release.

John jerked awkwardly to the side as blood spouted from a hole in his coat. Mason didn't know who shot. He didn't hear the gunfire – just the 'thwip' as it passed through flesh. John had pulled the trigger as he jerked, but Mason felt the wind of a bullet fly past his head like a big wasp. John missed. A second shot came from the edge of the field. John dropped to his knees with panic in his eyes. He brought the wavering, unsteady gun up to point at Mason's stomach shakily.

"If God wants you to live, nothing can kill you," Mason said, musing at his choice of an obscure Asian quote versus something Biblical. "He's not done with me," Mason sighed.

The bullet tore into his body, and he found himself on the ground, staring up at the blue sky. "I should get up," he thought as he struggled to move. The effort was almost too much for him, but slowly, he pushed himself to his knees, facing John. He felt the blood pumping from his body, running down to pool around his belt. John bled from two or maybe three places with a trickle of red running from his mouth. Mason stared at him. John tried to bring the big gun back up.

Mason grinned weakly, the edges of his vision turning smoky. He felt his heart slowing. "Don't work so hard, John. It's done. Thank you. "

The other man's brow knit, trying to understand what had just happened. Then John's eyes went glassy as he fell back hard as if dragged down by the weight of the heavy pistol.

Mason watched with inhuman fascination at how a lifeless body falls so simply, so purely. No attempts to brace or protect itself - remaining absolutely still with the shock of it. Just a sack of flour hitting the ground.

As the world went black, Mason felt his own breath erupt with a sigh. He didn't feel the falling or the landing - just the dirt pressing hard into his face as the dust filled his nostrils. His body made no effort to brace itself.

For a moment, he felt a hand lift his head and a voice saying, "My God. They're both dead."

"Hearing is the last thing to go," Mason laughed in his head and tried to remember where he'd heard that. "Not quite dead yet."

Then the darkness whirled in, and he knew he was.

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