She or it was about the height of a five story building and about as wide. She was colored grayish purple. Her skin rippled as if there were boiling fluid beneath it, or something squirming underneath. And her feet were no longer slabs. They had claws.

  She squatted and then leaped, sailing through the air toward me. Her clawed feet hit the roof of DAM with a massive crash, and sank deep into the concrete, throwing up dust and shards, scattering one of the camera crews. She paused a moment, letting the roof settle under her feet, then came slowly towards me, one horrible claw step after horrible claw step.

  I was as ready as I could be. I looked at the remaining camera crew. They stayed grimly aiming at the scene. The giant screen above showed the action. I couldn't help but think that the announcer would say this was another example of the Accord respecting the fascinating culture of our visitors.

  I just hoped the people weren't that stupid.

  With Octavia clomping towards me, I raised the rifle and fired. A pulse slammed out. I pulled the trigger again, and again. Each time the pulse threw me yards backward. Meanwhile, they hit the creature in the chest, the neck the head, the arms--all to little effect. The blasts were as ineffective as slaps from a child. They didn't slow her down.

  By now, the helicopter was hovering nearby. The whump of the blades was louder than the loud hailer that was calling out my name. Whose voice was that? Captain Paine's? Le Seaux's? Chen's?

  But I was only half listening. The rifle had finally stopped firing altogether. It was also too hot to hold. Octavia brushed the last blast away and then took one giant step towards me. Bang! She was right beside me, looking down, a colossus above an insect. I looked up at that horrible face.

  'It's over, Alex,' said a voice. It wasn't Octavia's. It was a growling voice, deep and menacing.

  So this is it, I thought. This is it. This is the way the world ends for Alexander Burns. At least I was going to die in battle. A kind of battle, anyway. That was something. And my cause was just, wasn't it? The Accord didn't deserve saving, but the people of the Accord deserved to be warned about the aliens. At least I had tried to do that.

  And then I could have taken on the Accord itself.

  Octavia had been watching. She actually shook her head in pity. Her pincer arm was just above me, lowering slowly. I tried one more time with the rifle and then let it drop. Not working. Too hot to hold. The pincer was on my chest. Then the pressure began, right on my Adam's apple. Heavier and heavier.

  'Goodbye, Alex.'

  The rain began falling again. Thunder rumbled. I thought I heard cheering from down on the square below. Were both the aliens and the Accord celebrating the defeat of the troublemaker, the rogue sailor, Lieutenant Burns? He'd tried and he'd failed to ruin the spirit of intergalactic goodwill, of tolerance.

  He'd gone against the ideals of the Accord.

  He deserved to die.

  I squinted up at Octavia through the rain.

  And then, as if my mind blinked, I was no longer there.

  55

  I WAS STANDING on the quarterdeck of the HMS Vengeance--holding the taffrail to keep the weight off my ankle. The pain was still there. It had come with me into this dream, this other dimension.

  Unfortunately, so had the bullet wound in my thigh. I winced as I stood on one leg, grimaced as I put weight on the other, like I was performing a jig.

  My ancestor stood at the taffrail too. As always, he was calm, commanding, imposing in his great coat, but this time, something was different. Captain Burns's ramrod posture was stooped as if he was suffering from a back wound. His hair was loose and his immaculate breeches were stained a watery red.

  'What's happened?' he said. 'You look worse than before.'

  'I could say the same about you.'

  'Was it Octavia?'

  'Was it the Indomitable?'

  'Not one hour ago.'

  'And it was Octavia,' I said. 'Still is. I must have passed out while she had me on the ground.'

  He nodded slowly. 'Was she...?'

  'Yes, big as a house, angrier than...'

  'Than a shrew.'

  'Yeah,' I said, not knowing what exactly he meant. 'She was furious.'

  We stood in silence for a moment listening to the ship's sounds, the groaning of the timbers, the protests of the straining ropes, the shush of the sea moving past the wooden hull.

  'She's going to invade,' I said, 'with more troops than the stars.'

  I winced as my ankle yelped, grimaced as my bullet wound throbbed.

  'You need help,' he said. 'Mr Collins!' he called. 'Pass the word for the doctor.'

  'I know what you mean now, grandfather.'

  'You know? Know what?'

  'Many things.'

  'Such as?'

  'Combat, battle. How exciting it is, and how terrible. How important it is to know the truth and to act on it. The lies the Accord has told us all.' Then I added. 'The importance of knowing the things that happened in the past.'

  'What things?'

  'All the things I wanted to learn about the PEA, but now there's no time.'

  'There'll be time,' he said.

  'I only wished I could have raised a family--to continue the Burns line.'

  'It's not too late,' he said. 'It's never too late.'

  'I think it might be,' I said. 'Octavia has me by the throat, but this time, I don't think this member of Burns line will survive.'

  'There's always a way,' he said. 'Never give in. Never.'

  'I'm just glad to have lived,' I said, 'if only for a short time. All my life, I've lived a delusion about the world and about myself.' The pain swelled in my legs and now my chest, as if the real world was breaking through into the dream world. 'Now, just when it's near the end, I've seen the truth.'

  He looked at me, Burns to Burns.

  'I'll say it again,' he said. 'Never give in! No matter how dark the hour. Never give in. Always tell yourself that.'

  Then he said something else, but I couldn't hear because the wind began to roar and the great ship careened to starboard. Down on the deck, shouting began. Something was wrong with the Vengeance.

  'What about you?' I said. 'Are you defeated?'

  He straightened up, hobbled over to me. He put his hands on my shoulders and spoke something to me.

  'I can't hear you, grandfather.'

  He said it again.

  'I can't hear you. I can't hear you.'

  56

  OCTAVIA LOOMED OVER me, but now something had changed. She had released the pressure on my throat. She was looking upward into the rain, at the heavy clouds above us. Then she looked down at me and smiled--or what I thought was a smile.

  'See?'

  'See what?' I rasped.

  'Look,' she boomed. I squinted against the rain and at the billowing mist of the clouds. There was nothing there--nothing but bulges and shadings, like bruises boiling inside.

  'There,' said Octavia.

  Then, I saw it.

  At first, it was just another shade of darkness within the cloud--a black bruise, bubbling. But the bruise deepened and spread. It, swelled all along the length of Hong Kong Harbor. Then, it spread outward over the Kowloon hills and over Hong Kong Island itself. The dull daylight faded to gloom, as if a solar eclipse were taking place, or a blanket was being spread over the city. The atmosphere thickened, and I saw flocks of birds racing away south to the sea.

  'There,' boomed Octavia.

  The first hull emerged from the cloud like a horrible black egg, first the curve of its bottom, then the dark mass of its belly. Then more hulls emerged as the great ship Excidium lumbered down from the clouds.

  Five, ten, twenty, fifty or more shuttle hulls pushed slowly through the mist until half the enormous ship was visible, like the underbelly of gigantic black whale.

  The lowermost shuttle hull almost touched the skyscraper on the harbor's edge. Any lower and the ship would begin smashing the city itself, knocking down the skyscrapers down like skittles. Perhaps that was the intention, to crush and destroy without firing a single laser, to show the people they were nothing compared to it.

  Then, the ship halted its descent and settled over the harbor, a hideous, gleaming cluster of shells from the far side of the galaxy. An awful display of power and technology.

  All was quiet. Not sound emerged from any of the hulls, except for the silent opening of hundreds of ports. Through them the barrels of laser guns now appeared, ready to cause devastation. And, then with the clanking and groaning of metal, the first of the shuttles detached and began descending slowly but heavily downwards.

  Octavia looked down at me, then, without warning stepped over me to walk to the edge of the building. She saluted her fellow Romans down at the square. I could imagine the cheer. Their mission was almost accomplished. They had deceived and then captured the Accord Commission; they had brought their entire invasion force into one of the Accord's main cities, all without a single shot being fired by the Accord's so called defense forces.

  And, through the television cameras and three million handhelds pointed up across the city, the invasion was broadcast around the Accord, from AONT Peru to AONT Greenland.

  Octavia returned from the building's edge. Standing over me, she waved to the ship above. Then, her monstrous face leered at me. She leant down and with one giant claw, scooped me upwards and brought me to her face. 'Give my regards to your ancestor on the other side,' she said. Then, she drew back her arm, as if she were going to throw me away, fling me far away into sea, like a pebble.

  Her arm extended way back, like a baseball pitcher's. I felt the surge of her muscles, ready to contract. I closed my eyes.

  But the day was not over yet.

  57

  A FLASH OF green shot from the sky, slicing through Octavia's wrist. Then a second shot of green flashed from the clouds and hit Octavia in the back, blasting through and carrying on to the parade ground below.

  What on Earth was happening?

  Octavia shrieked in pain and clutched at her back. I hit the roof with a sickening crack. It was my pelvis this time, but luckily my head didn't snap onto the surface and knock me unconscious. Octavia's hand crashed beside me in thump of dead, glutinous weight. Above, Octavia herself twisted in agony.

  But more blasts were to come.

  Green pulses shot from the clouds to the left of the Roman ship. Some shafted down towards the parade ground. But the majority struck the various shuttles and other vessels, causing searing holes to open up in their sides, with one or two exploding.

  Then the cause of all these shots revealed itself. A huge jagged spear pierced the clouds, followed by the rest of a wedge-shaped grey ship. It wasn't a quarter the size of the Roman ship, but it appeared to be a different class. It wasn't a troop carrier or transporter; it was more like a frigate. It was sleeker, more maneuverable, fitted with more weapons.

  Then, I realized. It was another Goth ship.

  Blasts of laser hit the Roman ship like green hail. Weak cannon fire was returned, but seemed to have little impact on the Goth ship, which sent rolling broadsides as it flew along. It also sent blasts down at the one Marine shuttle to have begun its drop to the Earth, hitting the troops as they emerged from the hatch, destroying them in an explosion of green laser and mud.

  Octavia sank to her knees, clutching at her wounds. Then, like the colossus that she was, she crashed sideways onto the roof, smashing its tiles with a sickening whomp. I couldn't tell if she were still conscious or not, nor whether she realized all her plans were now being undone by this new threat. Her eyes closed.

  Seconds later, so did mine.

  Aftermath

  THE NURSE LEANED in close while I lay flat on my back. She or he or zee pushed something pebble-like into each of my ears.

  At first, I thought they were some kind of ear cleaners, but after I felt the wires dangling on my neck, I changed my mind. I knew what they were.

  They were earphones.

  As far as I could tell, I was in a hospital. I could see a white ceiling, and white walls. And I could smell the bubble gum of antiseptic detergent--the same kind used on AONS Accord Values. Probably, it was a Navy prison hospital. Maybe one in AONT China. Or in AONT USA. But not on a ship, I could tell that much. There was no motion from the ocean, no ship's noises, no hum of engines.

  How long had I been there? I guessed it had been about two weeks. I had been delirious right up until this morning. All I could recall were brows frowning over blue surgical masks, and disturbing dreams in which my limbs were pulled, pushed and cut.

  'That should do it,' said the nurse prodding at the pebble in my right ear. 'He can't move his head, so they won't come out.'

  I swiveled my eyes to see the nurse's face. She wore short hair, the same as most Accord women, but her hair wasn't as short as say, Captain Paine's. It was softer than the usual brutal style. The nurse actually smiled when I managed to catch her eye and blink at her.

  Blinking was the limit of my movement. My head was secured by some kind of brace with spikes. I could feel other restraints too: something on my legs, and a hard length of something beneath my back.

  'I'll set the volume low,' said the nurse, 'so he won't be alarmed.'

  But now another voice spoke, a male voice.

  'Set it high,' the voice said. 'We want to make sure he doesn't miss a word.' The speaker was out of my range of vision, but if all my other guesses were correct, this voice belonged to someone from Navy Spirit.

  'We shouldn't overdo it,' said the nurse. 'He's only woke up last night. It's too soon. The doctors say he might have brain damage, along with everything else.'

  'No special treatment,' said the other voice, 'especially not for someone with a hundred and twelve Navy Spirit code violations.'

  'Even so.'

  'No, especially so.'

  'He's in a hospital.'

  'Yes, but a prison hospital.'

  'He has suffered extreme trauma.'

  'But he is a male patient who is an alleged traitor who rejects Accord values.'

  'Even so.'

  'Just press the buds in a little further to make sure he hears absolutely everything. If ever there were a guy who needed re-education, it's this piece of work right here.'

  The nurse pushed at each of the ear buds one more time. As she did, I tried to speak. 'The attack? What happened? My mother?'

  'What's he saying?' said the voice.

  The nurse leaned in again. 'What's that, Lieutenant Burns? What are you trying to say?'

  'The attack,' I said. 'Hong Kong, the aliens--what happened?'

  The nurse stood up. 'I can't tell,' she said to the other person in the room. 'His jaw can't really open. And, he's probably still delirious after so many sedatives.'

  'If he can't speak, then so much the better for his re-education,' said the male voice. 'Just leave him and start the lesson.'

  'No,' I said to the nurse. 'Stop. I'm OK. What happened? Can't you tell me what happened? My mother? Is she...'

  But it was too late. A female voice began shouting in my ear. 'Lesson One: The oppression of the people in The Pre Accord Era.' The volume was so loud that it was painful. I signaled the nurse to turn it down. I winced. I screwed up my face. I blinked over and over. I shook my head. I poked out my tongue. I tried to move my legs, my toes. I squirmed.

  But the reeducation lesson droned on.

  'The Pre Accord Era was characterized by one word: oppression. The oppression was imposed by the evil powers of the Western imperialists. It took many forms: free markets, the subjugation of women, mistreatment of LGBTQ people, colonization of other lands, insistence on the certainty of science and mathematics, of the so-called scientific method, patriarchal privilege, the idea of progress at all costs, able-ism, sporting contests, hierarchies of achievement, hierarchies of power, corruption, meritocracies, an emphasis on the family unit...'

  'Please,' I said.

  The nurse mouthed something, frowning.

  She looked to the side, looked back, still frowning. She put a cool hand on my forehead.

  And on it went until I blacked out.

  Several days later, I woke to a quiet room. The earphones had been removed. The re-education had ceased. The ringing of my new case of tinnitus filled the void, like a fire alarm ringing endlessly. A hand shook my shoulder. It was someone different. This person had a frowning face. Beside it was another face, also unfriendly, with brutal, short-cropped hair and a Navy Spirit insignia on the collar.

  Another nurse, or perhaps a doctor.

  'Lieutenant Burns,' said the nurse. 'Lieutenant Burns. Blink twice if you can understand me.' I blinked twice. 'Blink twice again for me again, please.' I blinked twice. 'Can you speak, Lieutenant?'

  'Yes,' I said. 'I think so.'

  'He can't really speak yet, Captain Dowson,' said the nurse.

  'Well, then he can't have any visitors either,' said the Navy Spirit officer. She stood up, then clicked on some kind of device that squawked. 'Ensign Tambor, please inform the two civilians that they can't see the prisoner. Not today. Maybe not for weeks, if ever.'

  'Wait,' said the nurse. 'He said something. I just heard him. What did you say, Lieutenant Burns?' She leaned in close.

  'The idiot beside you has their hand on my leg.'

  The nurse looked up and smiled.

  'He asked you to remove your hand, Captain,' she said. The heavy hand was lifted. 'If he's awake enough to make jokes, he's probably OK to see visitors, for a short while. Who are these people, anyway?'

  'One's army; one's a civilian.'

  'How did they get permission?' said the nurse.

  'A command from one of the commissioners. That's the only way we'd allow traitors like this to see anyone. We protested, but you can't argue, not against a commissioner.'

 

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