Given what we know from the prologue, Pai is increasingly in a “shoot first, ask questions later” mode. Even Graf twice mentions her acting like her mother, the most ruthless person on earth. There might be a bit more with their team, then a chapter break. Still not really decided on how to carry this kind of story forward.

I’m playing with the idea of part one of three being on the moon, part two back on earth with Alix and the children, and perhaps part three off to Mars. Or maybe somewhere more exotic. I’ll know when I’m told.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

“I’m almost finished,” he said, after kissing her.  “Can you send this once we’re underway?”

“If there is spare bandwidth aboard, sure,” she replied, easily picking up his dufflebag.  “But if so, I’ll make it so no one recognizes it’s me.”

Their six month assignment was under partial cover, with their squad as Preventive Medical Techs, checking on the moon bases.  They were really, just as I did in Ames, there to listen and learn.

They walked out onto the tarmac in their imperial uniforms with his new decanus patch on the front of Graf’s jacket.  Nominally in charge, he once again had already talked to the centurion that he would be relying on him.  The man had laughed back, “I think we’ll be relying on your wife!”

Not so much her striking appearance and resembling the empress a little, Pai had not gone out of her way to conceal what this form of her was, telling her husband is was more important that the men know, in case something happened.

Stepping up into the S-4, she paused and waved a salute to him.  “As of this moment, your commission is confirmed, Decanus Winstead!  Congratulations, sir!”

“Let’s find our seats,” he replied, rolling his eyes.

With most of the passengers scientists, engineers, and techs, it was only a 4G lift, rather than one of Pai’s six-plus, when she liked to show off.  Once that eased off to 1.5G, he took his notebook back out.

The next morning, he continued, given what Weissberg said, we ambled north a bit to where the university once was.  It looked as if there were actually a handful of students there!  Amazing; one in our group later found out they were largely self-directed, like the Brother and Sisterhoods, but for college, and almost all for ag.  When it comes to technical fields, most are apprenticed, just like home.

One of the other sections found where the Separatists were meeting – a laugh I’ll come to – and our centurion made the call that me and two others, who looked the most rustic, and didn’t have a Southron accent, were to drop in.  They were outside at some crumbling concrete tables; and thank God they were outside.  Apparently none of them had ever had a bath.  Is hygiene something they oppose, too?  And you know your dad has my close-cut beard, but some of the women had more facial hair than I do.

I played Jeff Wooster, from Wisconsin, first asking about who might know about local crops we might transplant.  They were clueless.  One of my rookies, maybe all of sixteen, cut to the chase and asked what they did.  When they all started talking at once, about the EVIL mutants and machines, the wind shifted.  I was almost floored by the smell, and y’all know I grew up on a farm.  Men yelling, the few women screeching; one hiked up her shift right in front of us to piss on an old picture of Aurelia.

“Maybe I shouldn’t say that,” Graf paused.  Pai looked over.

“No.  Do.  Now or later, they must know what ideology we’re up against.”

“You’re sounding like your mother again, Dearest Wife,” he smiled at her.  She didn’t.

“Wait until you see me angry.  And, no, I was not angry with Gordon when I murdered him.  I was sad.”

Not getting near that touchy subject, Graf finished his entry. 

I did the smart thing and played dumb.  It worked for five years with your Auntie… “Ow!” He got an elbow for that.  And just said all we wanted to be was let alone and that the Canadians seemed like a decent sort…  And more yelling and screaming about Russia and the imperium killing all the Canadians.  They really believe their own lies.  Amazing.  We made excuses and got away.  There was a pond to the south with too much algae, but we didn’t care and washed our faces and hands before returning to the rest of the unit.

That’s all for right now.  When we get to the moon, I’ll send pictures and I’m sure Auntie will send more of me falling down in low gravity.  Y’all help your mom all you can, and we’ll be back as soon as allowed.  Love all of you, Dad.

Instead of another elbow, Pai reached over, flipped through the pages, handed it back.  “Sending,” was all she said before leaning her head to his right shoulder.  “You are a wonderful husband and father.”

“I’ve left Alix and my children a quarter-million miles away at the order of someone I am not subject to for a mission I do not fully understand, Pai,” he sighed, sinking in the chair a little.  “I’ve read the mission brief but am fairly sure that you have access to more info.  Is there anything you can share?”

When she didn’t reply, he closed his eyes to rest for the next few hours.

“The factions exist on the moon, as well,” she said in her creepy android whisper.  “Not base by base, but room by room; sometimes mind by mind.  It will be impossible to tell friend from enemy.  Well, for you humans.  I can probably read them pretty quickly.  But our squad will not always be together.  An explosive in someone’s quarters?  A knife between your ribs in the mess hall?  A wing of a base suddenly in vacuum?”

She turned to look at him.  “We can trust our men.  I have seen them.  We cannot trust anyone else.  The gift of your voice might buy you the seconds you need to survive.”

“And there are how many people on Luna?” he asked, partly knowing the answer.

“A hundred thousand.  I would assume at least ten percent are the enemy.”

“Our enemy,” he sighed again, thinking about his childhood farm.

“After the Change, the enemy of civilization.  You are a part of that Change and are married to a Thinking Machine.  They will flay you alive then put your head on a pike to make a point.”

Pai shuddered a little.  Uncharacteristic for her.  “You know our kind do not plan, as you think, but I can still think about what I could do.  I don’t want to do that.”

Graf put his arm about his wife.  “I don’t want you to, either.  Let me rest and think a little before we arrive.  I will guess there are some things your mother won’t let you tell me?”

“Almost none.  She knows my loyalty is to you.  But that means she is also not telling me all she knows, Husband.”

“Then let’s be careful,” he said, kissing the human skin on her brow.  “We, all of this squad, will talk more once we land.”

Just before landing, she touched him to wake Graf from his catnap.  “You wrote about that little jaunt into Iowa.”  A statement.

“Yes.  I didn’t say anything classified, I think.  Did I?”

“No.” She handed him a bulb of water.  “I wanted you to know that a week later, the imperium sent another small group in.  Too many decent folks to nuke the place, so something more precise was needed.”

Graf was fully awake now.  “You’re telling me…!”

“The Separatists were evacuated.”

A scowl spasmed across his mouth.  “They only talked; they had not done…”

“More with your Midwest Nice.  You fools from west of the Hajnal Line.  You do not let your enemies have the initiative, Husband Junior Officer Winstead.  You take it from them.  Along with their lives, if need be.”

“There are these times where you sound like your mother.” He watched her eyes spark gold at that.  She nearly choked me when we’d just first met.  Will she again?

“No, I won’t.  I will ask you to think a little more.” Pai waved about the cabin.  “When one of your men has a gun aimed at him, are you going get all reflective, or shoot first?”

It was a very uncomfortable ten minutes to touchdown.