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giving her brother a hard stare. “We’ll take a small team and leave as many here as we can to defend the base. “I’ll check with Ricky and make sure the crawler is ready to go first thing in the morning.”

“I’ll get us supplied and put someone in charge of the Civil Authority while we’re gone,” Stacy volunteered. “Hannah would be my first choice. She has previous military experience. Right now, we need that more than a Civil Authority Officer trained to deal with urban situations.”

All eyes swung toward me.

“What?” I asked. “I just wanted to sleep.”

“Maybe you and Iris can inform Tong of the plan,” Arun suggested. “We’ll need him to come along with us if we’re going to travel to his installation.”

I glanced at the holographic map Iris still held in her hand. She didn’t show the section of the mist swamp beyond the southern forest, but I knew it was there. If we were serious about reaching Tong’s installation, our path went right into the unknown.

8

Sleep came without a problem that night. After the hot shower, I basically fell into a coma. Even better, there were no nightmares of the past. Ricky was gone when I fell asleep, working on the crawler. When I woke, his bed was still empty. I guess I had damaged the crawler worse than I originally thought.

The alarm clock by the bunk beds Ricky and I shared stood on one of the few pieces of furniture in our tent, a four-drawer dresser we shared, which contained the few changes of clothes we owned.

The alarm numbers stared at me bright red in the darkness, showing an ungodly early time. I elected the night before to get a solid night’s sleep and talk to Tong in the morning. The others would meet me at the alien’s mountain base, and we would leave. Iris had already informed Tong of our plan. My going was more out of courtesy than anything else to make sure the alien was ready.

I yawned, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. My cargo pants and long-sleeve shirt would work for another day. The fleeting idea that they needed to be washed came and went as I shoved my feet into my black boots.

Outside, only the suits on guard duty and the very earliest of risers were about. Cooks in charge of preparing breakfast walked down the road with large containers and supplies. A shift of mechanics that worked around the clock were busy on the watchtowers by the front gate.

I touched the earpiece in my right ear to speak with Iris. “You tell Tong I’m on my way?”

“He knows and he’s very excited,” Iris said. “His English has gotten better even since the last time you talked to him. He should be able to communicate with you on a very normal level.”

“Can’t wait,” I said, making my way to the gates.

“Stacy asked me to inform you that she will load the body armor into the crawler. You will be able to gear up Tong’s mountain installation before you depart on your journey,” Iris said.

“Right, the armor we found in the jungle, the gear David came across along with the crawler,” I said, remembering the body armor well.

The air was chilly in the morning before the planet’s twin suns beat the dawn back. I heard someone grunting and the familiar sounds of a bag being struck as I walked toward the gates.

The sounds piqued my interest. They were the same I had heard every day for the better part of my life. I missed the rhythm of gladiators hard at work, grunting and panting as they landed punches in the training room.

I weaved my way down a pair of tents, surprised to find myself at the northern section of the wall where the Civil Authority Department had constructed their headquarters. From behind the massive tent they used to run their operation, someone had set up a punching bag, bench, and weight rack.

John Bowers landed blows from his meaty hands on the bag. His fists were wrapped in white cloth. He had great form: head down, chin tucked, hands protecting his face.

The man knew what he was doing.

“You come to train too?” John asked without even looking at me.

“Not today,” I said, not missing a beat. “I’m on my way out. Heard someone trying to train, so I thought I’d come and leave some pointers.”

John slammed one more fist into the bag so hard, it nearly toppled the entire structure holding it in place. He looked over at me with a smile. “Anytime you want to step into the pit, you know where to find me.”

“Too few of us already,” I said, walking closer and examining his workout area. “I can’t have you out of commission while you’re recovering. Stacy would kill me.”

John grinned. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and motioned to the impromptu gym around him. “It’s not much, but I salvaged what I could.”

“It looks great to me,” I said, finding myself missing the smell of sweat and the sounds of lifting. “You said you were a gladiator too?”

“Trained under the best,” John said, taking a seat on the bench before grabbing his water bottle. “Never made it to the level you did because of an injury to my left knee, but I would have. I worked out at George Lopez gym.”

“No way,” I said, taking in John again and finding a new level of respect for the man. “I worked with George for a few years. Did he kill you with his cardio drills?”

A wide grin split John’s face. “I thought I was going to die more than once with that routine he had with all those burpees and sprints.”

“I puked a few times,” I said, remembering those years with fondness. “Couldn’t eat jalapenos for a while after they came up one day.”

We both grinned. A moment of easy silence passed between us as we found neutral ground.

“You know, I had you pegged wrong,”