Hammond’s Hardcases

By Jack Colrain

"This series has it all. From intriguing characters to lots of action and intrigue as well as believable characters. The suspense will not let you put it do."

 

They brought death and destruction to Earth. Now it's time to return the favor.

The massive Mozari spaceship struck without warning. In an instant major cities were leveled. Millions were wiped from the face of the Earth. The horrifying message to those remaining—your training starts now.

Pods scattered across the globe are filled with strange, alien wares and scientists of all backgrounds must come together to harness the advanced technology in a race to discover its secrets before the one-year deadline.

And before their experiments with the exo suits kill another soldier.

Few possess the rare antibodies needed to control the Mozari armor. But Daniel West soon discovers he's one of the civilians selected to be fitted and trained to use the suit. Instead of following in his family's footsteps, he joins the military and is assigned to a team on a mission to the Mozari ship. But when tragedy strikes his team, he must take command of a mission into enemy territory that promises nothing less than certain death.

What they discover on the ship changes everything.

 

Get all three Hammond's Hardcases novels in this exclusive boxed set. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Relay Publishing
• Release date: Apr 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201050702

Book preview

BLURB

They brought death and destruction to Earth. Now it’s time to return the favor.

The massive Mozari spaceship struck without warning. In an instant major cities were leveled. Millions were wiped from the face of the Earth. The horrifying message to those remaining—your training starts now.

Pods scattered across the globe are filled with strange, alien wares and scientists of all backgrounds must come together to harness the advanced technology in a race to discover its secrets before the one-year deadline.

And before their experiments with the exo suits kill another soldier.

Few possess the rare antibodies needed to control the Mozari armor. But Daniel West soon discovers he’s one of the civilians selected to be fitted and trained to use the suit. Instead of following in his family’s footsteps, he joins the military and is assigned to a team on a mission to the Mozari ship. But when tragedy strikes his team, he must take command of a mission into enemy territory that promises nothing less than certain death.

What they discover on the ship changes everything.

ONE

Greenwich, CT

Distant voices echoed from a long way away, from somewhere in the depths of darkness. But light followed, along with the scents of stale sweat and staler beer.

Rough gray breeze-blocks, cut by a scar of golden March sunlight from on high, greeted Daniel West as he opened his eyes. Blood thumping dully behind his ears, he rolled with a groan into a sitting position on the edge of the metal cot. His shoes sat on the cement floor next to him. He coughed, wincing at the taste in his mouth, and stretched. His shoulders popped, stiff and painful. He wondered if his tongue was as furry as it felt.

You awake, Wild? a voice called from outside the cell door, or coughing in your sleep? We might need your room for some real criminals later.

The door opened, revealing a uniformed policeman of similar build to Daniel, fit, but with paler skin and a small trimmed beard. A reassuring tall and solid presence that had stood by Daniel on quite a few high school sports fields.

Daniel smiled. Cody Walker, as I live and breathe; we must stop meeting like this.

That’s probably not a bad idea. Do you have any concept of how much paperwork you could cause me? And you know how much I hate paperwork.

Daniel pulled his shoes back on, and then stepped out of the cell. If you didn’t like paperwork, you wouldn’t have become a cop, surely?

If I did like paperwork, I’d have gone to Yale and been your roomie in law school. Come on, let’s get you back home.

Sounds good.

Cody led him out of the drunk tank, towards a flight of stairs leading up. Daniel could hear voices from above—both the variable tones of actual conversations, and the slightly too-loud voices that either suggested an elementary school teacher talking to a class or a TV host.

It turned out to be the latter: some of those voices were coming from a TV on the ground floor. He recognized the breakfast news anchors and one of the roaming overseas correspondents, who he couldn’t put a name to. He only caught half the actual words, but they seemed to be discussing something about an upcoming Presidential briefing on something overseas. Passing a restroom door, Daniel halted. Hold up, Cody. Mind if I stop off and clean up?

Why should I mind? I should have thought of insisting upon it. Magnanimously, he held the door open. The voices muted as Daniel pushed through into the restroom and went to a sink. He splashed some water on his face and cleaned his teeth as best he could with a wet finger in hopes of spitting out some of the stale paste that coated his tongue.

The face looking back from the mirror was unshaven, good-looking, he thought, with a Mediterranean tone dusted in patchy stubble. The lines under the green eyes were deeper than a regularly sober man’s would have been at his age, and he was surprised that the brown hair could look so messy when it was so short. The man in the mirror also looked a lot more athletic and fit than Daniel felt, and a lot less slumping and aching. At least the guy seemed to have good dress sense.

The Greenwich Police Department’s ground floor was much like any business office, with two walls that held large Armorglass windows looking out onto the concrete-slabbed plaza that was Bruce Place, in the downtown area of the city. A firearms locker was against a third wall, a private interrogation room and more serious cells through a door in the other. A few waist-high cubicle dividers separated out four desks, and few of the faces there were strangers.

Apart from himself, he saw only the officers, the civilian clerk, and a janitor. Officer Gabriel, whom Daniel knew was still nursing a busted knee, was at the switchboard, but his attention—like that of Officers Santos and Ryan, and the burly Detective Hansen—was on the big flat-screen mounted in the corner. Daniel wondered for a moment what was so interesting, but doubted it was going to be as important as getting this over and done with. It looked to be a stock market tracker on the screen. More immediately, he knew Cody would have his personal effects safe, and the paperwork for the Public Intoxication ticket filled out, same as every other time he hadn’t been able to walk home in a straight line.

You see this? Cody asked, picking up the citation from his desk.

It looks like paper, Daniel admitted.

"You’re half right. It’s paper-work. You know what I’m thinking?"

Daniel shrugged. That you hate it.

"That’s more just a basic fact, Wild. Right now, I’m thinking that next time this happens, I may just drop you off in an empty freight car heading up to Canada. When the Mounties up in fair Canuckistan find you sleeping off your trip with no passport, then you’ll get to do a lot of paperwork. And the Mounties get some, too..." Cody trailed off, looking over Daniel’s shoulder. Daniel turned to see what he was looking at.

The TV was covering the US News Network’s Breakfast Briefing, but instead of courthouses or celebrities, the screen was showing something Daniel couldn’t quite make sense of. On the left was a night starscape with something darkening a patch of it, blocking some stars. The familiar blue press briefing room at the White House was on the other side of the screen, with an empty podium and reporters failing to duck far enough out of the shot as they swapped seats. A rolling update slid across the bottom of the screen, but he couldn’t get a clear view of what it said.

Cody stood up and stepped a little closer to the TV.

Hold up and listen, Dan. Daniel hesitated; Cody had called him by his actual name, which meant he wasn’t bantering.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Press Secretary began from behind the podium, wasting no time after walking out. At twenty-one thirty, local time, astronomers and radar specialists from NORAD and several other organizations and countries confirmed the existence—the arrival—of an unknown Near-Earth Object in low orbit over the southern Pacific Ocean. It is much larger than most NEO asteroids, but its orbit is stable, and does not appear to pose any imminent threat to Earth. Further statements will be issued as we learn more.

Immediately, the TV speaker was filled with a clamor of questions about the object’s effects on the tide, what it might be made of, where it had come from, and why it hadn’t been detected earlier. One braver journalist stepped toward the podium more directly, risking being ejected for a such a breach of protocol. Is this a man-made, or, I should say, artificial object?

The Press Secretary caught herself before completing a shrug and smiled blandly and professionally. As yet, Ms. Lance, we have no comment to make on the object’s origin.

Then, is it natural?

As I said, we have no comment as of yet.

Can we take that to mean that you—the government—don’t know either?

The Press Secretary’s smile became slightly more frozen. Studies are continuing, Ms. Lance, but that’s all we can say for now. She shuffled some papers and nodded. That’s it for now. We’ll hold another briefing when more information comes in. She retired behind the curtain as another wave of camera flashes went off. The USNN studio filled the screen again, and a visibly surprised host turned to an elderly guest next to him. If I can just ask Professor Gray of Princeton’s Astrophysics—

Hansen grunted and muted the show. Daniel blinked and looked at Cody. What was that all about? he asked at last. Did someone slip me a roofie last night, and I’m tripping?

If someone did, it was probably a little green man, and he got the rest of us, too. Cody grinned. Wouldn’t it be cool if that’s who was coming? If it’s an alien mothership or something, the world changes right now.

Even if it’s natural, it’d be a second moon now...

May as well finish up with this citation so you can get on home.

Not wanting to pull his eyes away from the silent TV screen, Daniel asked, The usual fine?

The usual. No free road trip to Canada. This time. Cody nodded to the paper and slid it across the desk with a ballpoint pen. While Cody got Daniel’s wallet out of his desk drawer, Daniel signed the form, but then felt his eyes pulled back to the TV screen. A live feed of the object was on now, showing its darkness against the sky. There was a hint of pre-dawn lightness in the sky, which the rolling caption identified as being filmed by an Australian TV station.

The object was a rough, dark smudge maybe the size of a full moon, but more oval than any natural object in the sky. Another image of it flicked onto the screen, this one captioned as being shot from a US Naval ship. Then there was a shot taken from a passenger jet five miles up in the atmosphere. With this one, whoever had been filming on a phone or a tablet had zoomed in on the object as best they could, and now Daniel could see, despite the blur and motion-shake, that its surface was as rough as it was gray.

Daniel stood to get a clearer view of the TV over the shoulders of other people watching it. As he watched the silent image, the picture began to change. Something around the bottom edge of the shapeless object began to lighten, then glow. What the... As if reacting to his thought, three dull flickers shot out and away from the patch of darkness, and vanished. Hey, what—

Hansen shot in with the remote, bringing on a voice saying …objects are traveling at hypersonic velocity... Cody stopped form-filling.

Dan, this might be—

NORAD, the TV voice went on, has begun tracking three unknown ballistic objects. Analysis of their descent trajectory predicts landfall on the Eastern coast of Australia within minutes. Now, we’ll go live to our Australia correspondent, Kath Garner.

Garner was way out of her depth, if Daniel was any judge. She was on the roof of what Daniel assumed was a USNN building, looking to the east with a shaky smile. The camera kept following her gaze, but the evening sky was normal and clear. We haven’t heard any more about what’s going on than you have, she was saying, but as you can tell from the sirens in the streets below, people are... worried. Local authorities are advising all residents and visitors to take tsunami precautions, to go to the strongest structures. We’ll stay out here as long as we—

She broke off with a look of wide-eyed horror, and the camera whipped round dizzyingly.

The sky brightened, as if the sun were flying past in a blinding, blazing light with a slight green tinge, leaving purple streaks on the screen. Buildings in view flared with the amount of light reflecting off them. The TV speakers blared out yells, curses, car horns, and the sound of breaking glass. A thunderclap followed, snapping the screen to static.

The TV went black for a startling instant before cutting back to the news studio. Daniel felt as if the wind had been knocked from him, even though he wasn’t sure why he felt that. The hosts looked as if they felt the same way, their jaws slack and their eyes darting around for direction from their producers. Daniel remembered feeling winded and seeing casters like this on TV on 9/11, and he felt something sink inside himself now. He suddenly understood something very bad had happened, and his stomach lurched at the thought.

After a stunned moment, the host spoke uncertainly. We seem to have lost signal with our affiliate... We’ll try to regain contact as soon as we can, and... He looked down at the notes on his tablet, visibly disturbed. We can go to Terry Danvers in Canberra—that’s around two hundred miles from Sydney—who I believe can give us some kind of update on the situation. Terry?

Can you hear me OK? an American male voice asked.

Sure, Terry. You’re coming through loud and clear.

Things are a little... a little crazy here. Much of the Australian internet is down; phone connections to Sydney are down. We have a feed from a traffic chopper over North Canberra, and… oh. The last sound was small and lost, the sound of a man seeing a knife-hilt sticking out of his own body.

The chopper’s picture feed was jittery, but showed the neat layout of Canberra’s streets backed in the distance by a low range of khaki hills. Beyond them was a dark and roiling gray and brown ceiling of dust, with thick pillars of clouds holding up the sky. It took a moment for the scale to make sense, but then Daniel saw the true pattern: the thick mushroom cloud, almost blending with two others flanking it.

Daniel felt behind him for the chair and sat heavily, falling into it. How high must that mushroom cloud be to be seen from two hundred miles away, he wondered, and how big a nuclear blast did it take to make a cloud that high? Cody’s look of cautious wonder had drained from his face. A phone rang, which everyone in the room ignored, and then another, and then all of them were going off. Cody took a deep breath and stood up. Let’s get you home, West. He put a hand on Daniel’s elbow, steadying both Daniel and himself as he stood. While we can. You got transport?

You know I drink and walk; I didn’t bring my SUV.

Cody nodded, and handed Daniel his phone and wallet. Since we had it anyway, I put your cell on charge. You’d best call your dad.

Daniel nodded, wishing it would shake this strange world away. You guys are probably about to get pretty busy.

I think the world’s about to get pretty busy, Cody said.

The Pentagon, VA.

---

The mushroom cloud over Sydney loomed far larger on projection screens in the Joint Chiefs’ secure Combat Information Center, or C-In-C for short, nestled in the most shock-proof and bomb-proof sub-level of the Pentagon. It was a larger version of the chambers aboard aircraft carriers and other warships, from which battles were controlled and commanded. The Secretary of Defense, Gardner Davies—himself a former four-star general before he’d embarked on a political career—had hustled his way over immediately while the Secret Service moved the President and the rest of his Cabinet away from DC. Sydney might have been at the opposite end of the world, but it had been an object lesson in how cities were vulnerable, whether for deliberate attack or for natural disaster.

They nuked us? he asked the generals, admirals, and technicians filling the ultra-modern room. There were more than enough screens and high-tech consoles to keep dozens of tech geeks and strategists busy 24/7, but every eye was on the big display, and every ear glued to a phone or headset.

NORAD doesn’t think so, Air Force General Amanda Carver said at last, over the background chatter. She was a woman of average height, with close-cropped auburn hair, and wore US Space Command insignia. She’d never expected to be placed in charge of such a group, but it had been a dream come true for her, as her father had gone from being an Air Force fighter pilot to being an astronaut back in the 1980s. Their best guess is a dense metallic impactor—nickel-iron—about 75 meters across, accelerated by artificial means to give an impact yield equivalent to a fifty-megaton nuke.

Jesus, somebody muttered.

Carver nodded. Jesus would probably understand it pretty well; in Biblical terms, they stoned us, not nuked us.

Secretary Davies frowned. But if they have the technology to travel however many light-years, why would they just… throw rocks? They must have firepower far beyond any nuke ever built.

Why bother? Carver asked simply. Technology can fail; control signals can be jammed. There’s not much you can do to interfere with a rock once it’s been thrown. If your rock is metallic enough, you can accelerate it to any speed you want with a magnetic rail—

Like a railgun?

"Not just like, an admiral said from across the floor. Exactly, a railgun."

General Carver nodded. Make your rock fast enough, and shooting it down or deflecting it with missile defenses stops being an option—and the faster it goes, the higher the destructive yield on impact. And if your target doesn’t have any sort of missile defense, you don’t even need to accelerate it at all. Just let go of it from orbit on a trajectory that will take it where you want to hit, and let gravity do the work.

An adjutant approached Secretary Davies with a phone. Sir, it’s the President.

Yes, Jim, Davies said into the phone. I see... He nodded thoughtfully, even though the man on the other end of the line couldn’t see it. I think that’s our only real option, yes. Yes, I’ll get things moving on that here. Good luck.

He handed the phone back to the adjutant as his expression caught the eye of everyone in the room. The President has been in consultation with the leaders of various nations—China, Russia, Australia, our NATO allies—and all are agreed that... He hesitated, as if trying to think of a gentler way to phrase what he had to say. Whatever or whoever that thing is, or those in control of it, have committed an act of war upon this planet. We are agreed that a proportionate response is necessary.

For retaliation? Carver asked. Is that even possible?

Space Command’s job is to make it possible.

Greenwich, CT.

---

Daniel West was, literally, on the edge of his seat in his parents’ large TV lounge, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. Their TV was a lot bigger than the one in his New Haven apartment, but he wasn’t sure that was necessarily a good thing.

On the screen, a slightly distorted fish-eye lens image showed jagged black and gray shards and spikes on a slowly-rotating, slate-colored backdrop. It was impossible to tell whether any of the stuff was rock, or metal, or some other weird material. Daniel supposed that’s why they called it ‘alien’—he knew enough about Latin from his legal studies to know that the word meant ‘other.’ Maybe it was something other than rock or metal. There was a NASA copyright notice in one corner of the image. Daniel guessed they’d turned an imaging and photography satellite around to get a good look at the object that had destroyed Sydney.

There didn’t seem to be doors or windows, let alone laser cannons or engines. It didn’t look much different than the images sent back by probes that had landed on comets or asteroids.

A reporter had been giving a voice-over about what the news coverage was showing, but they didn’t have much to talk about, so he’d kept looping back to experts repeating that they had no idea, and callers demanding it be destroyed. Daniel had turned the sound off.

Now, however, a scroll had opened up at the bottom of the screen, reading, ‘US and Chinese missiles launched at object,’ and he grabbed for the remote to turn it back on.

The image rotated, just enough to include the curvature of Earth and a number of bright specks approaching the object. We’re fortunate, a female reporter was saying excitedly, that NASA has a good view of the imminent impacts of the nuclear ICBMs launched by China and the US. NASA exo-geologists estimating the density and structure of the material from their satellite images believe that two or three impacts will shatter—

The voice fell silent as a flash came from somewhere between the spikes protruding from the object’s surface. At the same time, one of the approaching specks flared up spectacularly, almost whiting-out the satellite’s camera. Then, another flash and another whiteout, and another, and another. Daniel winced, glancing away from the TV at the rapid flashing like camera flashes at a concert.

Oh my god. The missiles— the reporter’s voice cut off, and Daniel saw that the TV screen had gone to gray static. He picked up the remote and started flicking channels, but they were all the same: cable, streaming, everything. Dismayed, he reached for his cellphone to call for tech support, and he almost jumped out of his skin when the phone buzzed and shook just as his hand touched it.

It wasn’t Cody, or his dad, or anyone else he knew—not that he knew personally, anyway. It was the Presidential alert system, but the message on it was weird:

MOZARI, it read. The word just sat there, and Daniel couldn’t tell if it was a plea, an order, or just some new attempt at a buzzword from the government. It was on the TV screen, as well, now: MOZARI. Daniel leapt to his feet and ran to his laptop in the study. When it booted up, its screen reassuringly showed his usual desktop background and icons, but as soon as he opened a browser window, that reassurance blew away like smoke. There was no internet.

There was just MOZARI. He glanced back through the door to the lounge just in time to see the TV image change. It still showed just one word, but now the word was TRAINING. The same thing had happened on his cell and laptop. TRAINING, they now proclaimed. After a minute or so, the screens changed again, and to a new single word: NOW. This time, he kept watching until the word changed again, and this time it was to a phrase. WE ARE THE MOZARI.

Now the screens started to show multiple words at a time. First, WE ARE THE MOZARI, and then, TRAINING BEGINS NOW.

The two phrases alternated, flashing back and forth almost painfully on every medium Daniel could check—TV, email, texts, everything.

WE ARE THE MOZARI. TRAINING BEGINS NOW.

The Pentagon, VA.

---

General Amanda Carver had never heard a C-In-C go so silent. The screens said all anyone needed to know. Every missile destroyed, she whispered.

If this is what they call training... Secretary Davies said. I’d hate to know what they’d call real.

Sirs, a technician said in a quavering voice. I think we might be about to find out.

NORAD reporting three inbound targets, another technician chimed in. No, wait, six targets, on ballistic arcs.

Alarms began to sound. "That’s our early warning system," Carver exclaimed.

Three targets projected to impact on the continental United States, someone was saying.

Where?! General Carver demanded. We need to start evacuation protocols for—

USGS reports impacts in China, another technician called.

NORAD confirms, another said. Impacts at coordinates… Shenzhen. It’s the city of Shenzhen.

US impact projection confirmed. Three targets are on trajectory for Houston, Texas.

Get onto our people there, Carver snapped. Begin evacuation procedures.

Impact reported. Houston has gone off the air.

Carver fell silent and slumped into her chair. Signals came in from so many channels and phones and screens for another minute, and then there was a deafening silence. For a moment, the screens showed static, and then words appeared.

UNITE AND LIVE.

Jesus, Carver muttered, just before the words changed.

FIGHT AND DIE.

There was sobbing around the room, and prayers and muffled swearing. Then the systems came back on line. For a few hours, the C-In-C worked as best as its occupants could manage, given the scale of the attack that had just occurred. The Secretary of Defense managed to make a trip to meet with the President and the rest of the Cabinet while General Carver was able to plan out orders for Space Command, and have a conference call with senior staff in Strategic Command.

The last thing she wanted, when she had been awake for twenty-seven of the worst hours in Earth’s history, was to hear the newest words that came from the NORAD comms operator: New contacts separating from the main object. Carver felt a void open in her gut, as if she were going to be sick. How many? she asked wearily.

The reply sounded incredulous. Twenty-four object returns, random trajectories.

Carver gritted her teeth so as not to be sick. She could hear someone failing on that score somewhere behind her. More cities... How many millions...?

The NORAD comms tech frowned, and said, No cities. They’re tumbling, much harder to track.

Meteors?

Radar returns suggest low mass, approximately two metric tons each, size estimated to three meters... hollow.

Hollow? If they were hollow, what might be inside them? Track them. Get every service branch on this—anything with radar, anything with magneto-metrics, satellite imagery—whatever these things are, be they canisters, or pods of some kind, or just pieces of debris, we have to find them.

And we won’t be the only ones looking, the Secretary of Defense said, coming back into the room. These are going to be the highest value recoveries with which our military has ever been tasked. However unreal all this may seem today.

Trust me, Mr. Secretary, Carver said grimly, nodding to the big strategic information screens all around. This is more real than any of us have ever seen before.

And may God have mercy on our souls? the Secretary asked.

Carver snorted. I guess that depends on whether it’s one of our gods or one of theirs that’s at work today.

TWO

Greenwich, CT.

The May sky was bright and blue over Connecticut, but the last of the early spring frosts had long since gone, and Maria West had decided it was about time to plant the infant tomato plants she’d bought a few days earlier. Daniel concurred; he’d been helping her out with gardening for as long as he could remember, and it had become a normal part of his life as he’d grown up. These days, two months after the Mozari had appeared in orbit and destroyed Sydney, it was a touchstone to the old normality of the world.

Maria was almost as tall as her son, and although she’d turned fifty at the beginning of the year, she had very little gray in her hair, and was as fit and healthy as most thirty-somethings Daniel knew. By contrast, Nathan West, Daniel’s father, looked pretty much like any TV show’s idea of a middle-aged financier; a little overweight, his hair graying but not falling out—which gave Daniel hope for his own future—and with a piercing gaze.

Nathan had chosen his land wisely when he’d bought the house, selecting a large 1930s property enclosed at the end of a long driveway by a very sturdy and ornamental six-foot-high trellis-type fence. This backed onto a hundred and ten acres of meadow land on the outskirts of the city, all of it surrounded and divided into fields by lower fences. Originally, Nathan had considered the land an investment upon which he could build other properties to sell or rent, but in the end his wife’s attraction to walking the dogs and growing produce in a little section of countryside—probably going back to the fact that she had grown up on a farm in Spain—meant that he had only built one smaller house which was a short walk from his own. Originally, the second house had been the residence of the gardener and groundskeeper and her family, but they’d reluctantly left the Wests’ employment to be with their more elderly relatives on the West Coast after M-Day, the day the Mozari had destroyed Sydney.

The West family had been sad to see them go but couldn’t blame them. This was definitely a time to look after family. Nathan had given them a generous severance bonus and made sure they knew that, if ever they needed it, he would give them any assistance possible.

Their departure meant the family spent longer hours looking after their land, but they were all fit and healthy enough to not be too concerned, and it had always been a hobby anyway. They simply enjoyed working their land. Maria probably enjoyed it the most, Daniel thought, because of her rural upbringing. His father seemed to view the matter more professionally. He would pontificate, given half a chance, on how people needed to think about producing their own food because, he was sure, they were facing the worst global disruption of civilization in history since the Mozari had arrived in orbit two months ago. He had even written an article about it for the Greenwich Magazine.

The gardeners’ house hadn’t remained empty, however. The housekeeper, Mrs. Gordon, and her husband were both nearing seventy years of age, and they’d been only too grateful to move in to a new home that meant she no longer needed to pay rent nor take a long bus ride to travel between work and home. Their son, Mick, was an ex-sailor who had been Nathan’s driver for years.

This one’s a good one, Daniel said to his mom, holding up a young plant to the sunlight and squinting at the leaves. Plenty of silver on it. Maria looked for herself, observing the fine downy silver hairs on the green surface of the leaves. Daniel knew from experience that the best tomato plants had that silver sheen.

Definitely silver hairs on that one, she agreed, handing the little plastic pot back to him and pointing to a spot of turned-over earth near a decorative trellis. I think there would be a good spot. Daniel knelt as directed, tipping the plant gently into his hand, readying it to go into the socket that his mother had just knelt to dig out with her trowel. We’ll lay this crop of tomatoes here, so we can hitch garden canes to the trellis as they grow. Keep them nice and safe from any breezes.

Daniel nodded, barely noticing a faint knocking from somewhere within the house. When we’re done here, I’ll go and get the compost bags from the back of the pickup.

Good. We’ll need them pretty soon.

The French doors at the back of the house opened, and Mrs. Gordon stepped out and made her way stiffly through the rose garden to where Daniel and Maria had stood up to greet her. There’s a man at the door, Mrs. Gordon said without preamble, to see Dan.

Me? Daniel couldn’t help being surprised. Cody would just have come on in, and Mrs. Gordon would have been able to at least identify most of his other friends. Who is it?

A postman. Hopefully, not a disgruntled one, but he didn’t have a gun. Just some envelopes. And a form.

Daniel and Maria exchanged glances. She looked as pale as he felt. OK, Daniel said. He nodded to his mother. This won’t take long. Then he followed Mrs. Gordon back into the house and through to the front hallway. Although there were a couple of chairs for visitors, the walnut-skinned guy in the USPS uniform remained standing. He looked surprisingly old for a postal worker, but was still in solid shape, with iron-gray hair cut short enough to kill its natural curl.

He extended a hand. Daniel West?

I’m Dan West. He shook the man’s hand, finding the grip surprisingly strong. Clearly, this guy had kept in shape, and probably wrestled bears or alligators in his younger days, Daniel thought, half-seriously. Between the stance, grip, and posture, and the way he wore the uniform like it was tailored, and not just hung on for work, the guy had military veteran written all over him. What can I do for you?

Well, if you’ve been watching the news, I guess you probably have some idea. He offered a faint smile.

The draft registration?

The guy nodded sympathetically. Your Selective Service registration expired last birthday, but now that the President has instituted a degree of martial law... registration is being expanded to cover up to age forty-five instead of twenty-five. Selective Service have gotten us—I mean, the USPS—to help make sure that everybody between the old cut-off age and the new one is still registered. Or re-registered. His expression took a sad turn. Women, too, which is a big change from my draft...

You were drafted?

First time, yeah. I re-upped voluntarily, mind you, back in the day.

I did see the news, but... Voices on TV said a lot, but rarely seemed to say anything that affected Daniel personally. He felt a little dizzy, as if he was dreaming, or as if he was waking up from a dream in which he’d been a final-year law student with ambitions for the Bar and a federal attorney’s office. One of the two realities must be true. I’d have thought there would be contact by text or email, or—

Like the government’s going to trust that stuff when there’s an enemy up there who can take over all our communications when they want, or flatten cities in India and Pakistan the moment their governments so much as say the W word to each other. He shook his head. No, son, face to face contact is where it’s at. Filling in forms in pen and ink, so that hopefully the data can be kept un-hacked by whatever those Mozari are.

Unless they’re capable of posing as humans and getting postal jobs? Daniel suggested, maybe half-seriously.

The guy shrugged. Who knows? If they are, I’m not one; but if I was one, I’d say I wasn’t, so I guess you got to just go with it.

Well, you do seem a little old for walking door-to-door.

Truth to tell, I retired ten years ago, but with the world the way it is, and the younger guys all registered for the draft lottery, coming back seemed like doing my bit.

For our country, Daniel acknowledged, hoping he’d have felt the same as this man standing in front of him if he’d been the same age.

For people, son. Country’s just an accident of birth. He handed over a form on a clipboard. Anyway, here’s the form for re-registering. As I understand it, they’ll all go into a database of contacts for those eligible for the draft lottery.

Daniel nodded as he filled it in. He wasn’t sure whether he should be eager or whether he should lie to get out of it, and in the end, like most people probably did, he completed it in a sort of bureaucratic daze, the way people filled in any paperwork from officialdom. When he was done, the USPS guy signed to show that he had witnessed Daniel fill in the form, face to face. Daniel could only make out the surname, Spinney.

It’s gonna be different this time, I think, Spinney said. When I was drafted back in ’72 for ‘Nam, the lottery was for all men between eighteen and twenty-five. He hefted his delivery bag I daresay women will do fine, but forty-five’s no age to try to get through a bootcamp. They’ll probably kill half their inductees with heart attacks and strokes, just trying to get them fit enough to march in line, if they pick people that old.

‘Nam? The Vietnam War? Daniel asked. Spinney nodded. If there’s going to be a war this time, I don’t see how we’re going to win if we can’t even touch their ship, or that... that Death Star or whatever the hell it is they’ve got up there.

Win? Spinney echoed. What’s winning, kid?

Getting rid of the threat. Getting our lives back to normal—

Bringing back all the folks they ghosted in Houston, Sydney, Shenzhen...? Seventeen million non-winners there, even before they hit New Delhi and Islamabad last month.

So, what would you call winning?

Spinney grunted, the action turning into a coughing fit. Not losing.

Well, I guess they are opposite things—

The man frowned at him. No, son, they’re not. Not in this kind of war. Maybe if you start a war to steal some land or something, then getting it might be what you’d call winning, but a war just for life? Losing is dying; surviving isn’t the opposite of losing, just the absence of losing. Look at me; I didn’t get anything out of ‘Nam. I didn’t win anything, for all my good soldiering. But I didn’t die, either. I survived, the war ended, and I got out; that’s what counts.

Getting out alive.

For sure. He sighed. Getting out alive. Getting your buddies and loved ones back home alive, too. You lose a war, or the war ends. That’s it. I guess the best way to not lose it is to end it. By killing the other guy, if that’s what it takes. That’s how you end a fight.

You mean win a fight.

"I mean end, without losing. And the longer it goes on, the more chance a GI has of losing."

THREE

New Haven, CT.

Daniel West’s weekday life for the past four years had been centered on his pleasant studio apartment in downtown New Haven, a block’s walk from the New Haven Green, the park that was the centerpiece of both the city and Yale University, where he had been studying. He had never felt pressured by his parents to follow any particular career path or study law; it had simply felt natural, and he enjoyed it. It felt like he was working towards something good and helpful.

And it felt like something his sister would have wanted for him. The one family photo he had in the apartment was of himself, his parents, and Elizabeth, set in a frame on the glass coffee table in front of his TV. It had been taken twenty years ago, when his parents had been a younger handsome couple, he himself had been six years old, and Elizabeth had been seven. She had only had one more birthday.

Classes had been suspended yet again, so Daniel’s afternoon was free, and he felt he would rather occupy himself than mope around wondering if his final semester would actually be completed while sitting and drinking alone. The apartment was feeling more like a waiting room these days than a home.

There were always the TV talk shows filled with arguments over whether the suspension of the Constitution was legal, and experts debating what the Mozari might look like or what their home environment might be like, but none of those appealed, either. He dressed in some nice casual gear and went out. There were some good food places on Chapel Street, across from Old Yale, where he could get something nicer for lunch than a TV dinner. Something red to go with it, maybe, or something brunette.

The Green at the end of Chapel Street seemed a little subdued, though it was still fairly busy. It was definitely less thronging than it had been a couple of weeks before, though. Then, the whole of downtown had been packed with thousands of protesters demanding the restoration of the Constitution. Now, there were maybe a couple dozen of them drifting aimlessly around the Green.

Daniel recognized one of the cops watching them from near a line of cabs and strolled over to say hi. The cop was lean and long-legged, like he’d been built for a career as a marathon runner. He was all legs and arms, but with a swimmer’s powerful shoulders, too, which Daniel figured was handy when it came to handling suspects. His name was Jerome, but he’d gone by Jay ever since he’d been a classmate of Cody’s at the Academy—which was when Daniel had gotten to know him as one of Cody’s and his occasional drinking buddies. Daniel had always thought it was a sensible idea for someone who wanted to train as a federal attorney to get to know some of the law’s representatives on the streets. Hi, Jay.

Hello, West. Not joining in with the protest today?

Daniel shook his head. Would there be a point?

In wanting to restore the Constitution? The actual foundation of our nation is pretty damn important, don’t you think? Jay asked him.

Absolutely. Without it, we’re living in... well, not the United States we all grew up in.

Well, then.

At least it seems to be quieter for you guys.

Jay shrugged. Yeah, I think what’s left are just the folks who feel a duty. Whether to their cause or just to virtue-signaling, I couldn’t tell you. Jay shrugged. But they’re harmless. They’re not protesting anybody in particular, so it’s just an afternoon stroll for them, and watching them pays my rent without requiring paperwork, so... I guess it works out in the end. If that’s a waste of time, I’m happy with it. Don’t tell them I said that, though. Maybe they’ll get lucky and get what everybody wants.

If nothing’s been done yet, nothing’s going to, and you know it isn’t.

Jay looked surprised, and not a little disappointed. You’ve drunk the Kool-Aid, then, West? Gone in for that head-down-and-don’t-be-noticed-by-the-Man thing? But he could barely keep his face straight. That works for me, too; the more, the merrier. Less paperwork in the end.

Daniel laughed. Nah! Look at those dudes, Jay; there are, what, about a couple dozen of them? Where are the reporters, and the TV news cameras?

Well, they’ll say there’s censorship—

I bet they will. It’s more reassuring that way, you know? That means somebody’s noticing them enough to do something about them. If there were cameras here but none of the footage airing, that’d suggest censorship. What this is is just... yesterday’s news. Don’t get me wrong; I think protesting can make a difference, and it’s happened before, but it only makes a difference when people are watching. When nobody’s watching... nobody’s going to notice or think about it.

That’s kind of a depressing view, Jay said, archly.

It should be; it’s a depressing fact. It’s just such a waste, isn’t it? Everybody here is pretty bright, so them wasting their time waving cardboard around and marching in circles when nobody’s watching... Yeah, it is depressing. Disappointing, too, maybe.

You been drinking, West?

Not a drop.

Then it’s probably time you did. Loosen you up a bit.

Not a bad idea, man. Food first, though. He nodded goodbye to Jay and headed across the Green towards a steakhouse that he knew had decent craft ale.

Daniel managed to catch the sweet spot in the afternoon, when the lunch crowd had mostly gone back to work and the first of the evening diners were still a couple hours off. That meant he got a table to himself for a juicy steak and good beer. Then, he started back along the edge of the Green, pausing to check out the latest issues of Time and Newsweek on one of the few remaining newsstands. The former was leading with a bleak white-on-black text cover: UNITE AND LIVE, FIGHT AND DIE. Daniel grimaced. He’d had enough of the Mozari’s communications style when those words had taken over the TV, net, and cellphones a couple of months before. They should have been hopeful words. Perhaps they would have been, too, if they hadn’t been followed by two meteor impacts on Islamabad and New Delhi a month ago. He’d gotten the message, though. Everybody had gotten the message when the capitals of two countries that decided to fight each other had been destroyed by the interlopers.

A curvaceous girl with cornrow hair, a turtleneck sweater that was tight in all the right places, and even tighter black jeans was looking at Newsweek, which had a more interesting cover, referencing an internet viral meme he’d started seeing recently; it was about some supposed other meteorites that had come in after the destruction of Houston and Shenzhen. "‘Who Has the Mozari Pods?’ he muttered unconsciously. Well, whatever they are, I haven’t got them." He wasn’t even sure they existed; the memes and the talk shows always quoted unnamed sources and anonymous radar technicians, while NASA and NORAD waved away such pieces as speculation.

He hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud until a female voice beside him answered, The Church. Daniel turned, finding himself face-to-face with the girl with the cornrows, who looked to be a few years younger than himself.

Church? he echoed.

The Church of the Mozari. She held up one hand, which was clutching a bunch of folded leaflets bearing some kind of wannabe-esoteric symbol and a stylized ‘M’. There are quite a few members around campus now.

What’s the Church of the Mozari? Daniel asked, though he could probably have taken a good guess. New religions sprang up every year, and for most of his childhood, the documentary channels on TV had been filled with stuff about UFOs and aliens—especially alien gods.

The path to happiness.

Don’t all religions call themselves that?

I guess so. But their gods are imaginary, right? Invisible sky creatures. The Mozari are definitely from the sky, but we can see them. She noticed his poker face and smiled faintly. "Well, at least we can see their ship, right? Or could if we were in the southern hemisphere."

You’ve got me there, Daniel agreed. Though I dunno about the path to happiness.

You’ve seen the messages, right? They want us to unite. To train ourselves. To better ourselves. She gave him a coquettish look. In unison.

When she turned, Daniel began to stroll alongside her, down the edge of the Green. OK, I’m all for doing things in unison.

Then you’ve learned the first lesson of the Mozari: uniting. Worshiping the Mozari, and uniting, is the way to pursue happiness for humanity. They teach us that. At the First Church, I mean.

Daniel resisted the urge to dismiss her bizarre claims; she was a redhead, after all, and he had kind of hoped that a pretty girl like her might appear and take his mind from its darker corners. He didn’t say that, though, lest she claim that her appearance was a miracle of the Mozari.

The pursuit of happiness? he repeated. Wasn’t there a movie called that?

I don’t know, but there have been movies called pretty much everything, haven’t there?

"Pretty much. If there was a movie by that name, I never saw it anyway. Just sounds kind of familiar."

Everybody wants to live happily ever after, so that’s why they make movies about it. And that’s why the Mozari came and stopped our wars. So people can live happily ever after. Daniel wasn’t sure why he didn't point out the millions who certainly would not, thanks to the Mozari’s meteors. That’s why, she continued, they’re training us—teaching us to have better lives.

I can’t say I’ve thought about happily-ever-after lately. But happy here-and-now is a start.

Of course, it is. Ever after is made up of lots of nows.

Here and now happiness is more about... he searched for a suitable word. Bliss.

Bliss? she echoed. Bliss is good.

Daniel smiled. Mm-hmm. The bliss of shared touch, intimacy... that warm glow of skin against skin, that lasts when two people blend and merge... or unite.

She brushed her hand against his. That sounds wonderful. Bliss is a good word. I think we can work with bliss.

Bliss is a good feeling, too; a healing feeling. He winced at the unintended rhyme, but she ignored it, nodding enthusiastically. Call it the first step towards happiness, and, yeah, I’d like to see you happy. I’d like to help you feel... bliss.

I think I’d like that. You seem like you like helping people.

It’s a vice of mine. Perhaps we should go somewhere a little less public?

Where did you have in mind?

My apartment’s not far.

Cool. I think you’re going to have a happy time there. And I think so are we.

Daniel brushed her hip with his as they walked more closely, and his heart began to

speed up.

So, afterwards, she continued, you’ll come back to the Church, and we can tell them how we’re happy. Tell them about our bliss and learn to spread that bliss with the Mozari. For the Mozari.

What? That sounded weird… was he supposed to give a report on what they’d done in bed? What was that all about? They’d reached a crossing point on the street, and he paused there.

She glanced left and right, giving a slight nod in each direction. It seemed a weird way for her to acknowledge that she’d looked both ways before crossing the road, but that level of weird he could put up with for a couple hours of bliss. He started to step forward, then noticed that a guy to the left had stood up from a bench and started towards him. The guy was his age, looked like he worked out, and was wearing a turtleneck under a buttoned shirt even though it was a hot day. He had a smart, casual look that made the outfit look like some kind of office uniform, without actually being something you’d wear in the office.

Then he sensed movement to his right; another athletic guy in a turtleneck and buttoned-up shirt was strolling in from his right. Two guys in such similar outfits was undoubtedly suspicious, and he turned to hustle the girl along, only to see her smile and beckon to them. She hadn’t been checking traffic safety. He suddenly noted that above the pleasantly tight parts of her sweater, the neck was a turtleneck, and he doubted that the similar garments on the two guys were coincidental. Some line from Animal Planet came to him, about big cats hunting in groups where two or more would flank their prey before bringing it down.

Whether they were guarding her to keep guys away or to make sure that new recruits to their wacko religion signed up, Daniel couldn’t tell, but it killed his ardor for sure. I changed my mind, he told her bluntly, his smile vanishing as if it had never existed, and with that he started to walk away.

But you wanted bliss, she reminded him, hurrying along behind him.

Yeah, the kind you get in bed, not the kind you get in Kool-Aid from aliens who nuke cities.

The Mozari only want to make us happy. You’ll see. She darted round him, blocking his path. You will see, she repeated more firmly.

He sidestepped her, snapping, No, they don’t, and I won’t.

The delay had been long enough for one of the guys to grab at Daniel’s shoulder. Come on, the guy said, she’ll show you a good time; it’s what the Mozari want.

Daniel tensed, holding himself back from just punching the guy, and tried to stay polite. Take your hand off me, or I’ll snap it off and keep it as a souvenir. That was about as diplomatic as the guy made him feel.

You know you’re interested in happiness, so why deny—

Daniel’s patience could only stretch so far. He shook himself free from the guy’s grasp and shoved him aside so that he stumbled into a table, sending a couple’s coffee cups to the ground. The other guy threw a short jab to Daniel’s face, but it skipped off, stinging. Daniel didn’t know much about fighting, but he knew that the sooner he got these guys out of his face, the less he’d need to know about it. His hand bumped against a cafe’s chair, so he grabbed it and hit the guy with it. The chair was lightweight, but solid and an awkward shape, so it knocked the guy back. The second guy started grabbing at Daniel’s collar, and pulling. Daniel toppled over, pain flashing in his hip, and rolled in the hope of getting out of the way before the guy could get a kick in.

No kick came, though; instead, he heard a police siren wail once, and shouts. As he got to his feet, he saw the two guys and the girl running across the Green while a couple of people took camera phone pictures of the scene. No doubt, his landing on his ass would be all over the internet in an hour.

Two cops were there, one radioing in from the car. The other was Jay. What happened here, West? he asked.

Some kind of... I dunno. This girl said she was from some kind of Church for the Mozari or something. He spotted a fallen flyer and picked it up. This bunch. I’ve never heard of them.

Jay looked, and groaned. The Mozzarellas? he asked. That’s what we call them in the squad room. I know them. They’ve been recruiting the past couple of weeks. The redhead’s name is Lucretia or something like that. She’s a hottie, the cop said. Can’t say I blame you for that. But everything she’s got is on the outside, you know what I mean? Looks and shimmy, but up here— he tapped his forehead, —it’s all scrambled, same as with the rest of those kooks.

Yeah, I got that impression.

Jay shook his head. I don’t just mean, like, ditzy or flighty, or even particularly dumb, he said, more seriously. I mean there’s some kind of pathology there. They’re dangerous; every day, they get more mouthy about wanting people to do things their way, and every day there are a couple more of them. They’re bad news, West. I’d stay away from them if I were you. Hell, I’d stay away from them myself if I could get away with not having to deal with them.

FOUR

New Haven, CT.

Alone in his apartment, Daniel sighed and laid down the letter informing him that the final semester of his final year had been canceled. There was a mention of remote work over the internet for those like himself who had relatively little coursework remaining, just so that they could complete their studies and submit final material from home, or wherever they happened to be residing at the time.

The apartment certainly wasn’t home. Daniel found himself buttoning up his shirt even though the thermostat said the temperature was comfortably warm.

From his window, he could see more people in turtlenecks, and more people handing out leaflets. There seemed to be a couple more of them every day. Now and again, when out and about, he’d noticed the distinctive red hair of Lucretia in the distance, but she never approached, and he had no desire to do so, either.

Daniel paced more in his apartment and found excuses to go for walks, although then he sought out quiet paths away from the Green that he had always loved in the past. Somehow, the independence of the apartment was soured by the creeping expansion of the various branches of the Church of the Mozari over the past couple of weeks. With the cancellation of actual on-site classes, the apartment was ever more just a place to store himself.

A few days ago, he had gotten around to emailing the landlords, and he recognized within himself the inevitable. He’d thought he would have been reluctant to give notice, but in the end, he’d been neither reluctant nor eager. It had just seemed the natural endpoint of a decline in both the place’s attraction and its usefulness.

Once the decision had been recognized, rather than made, it hadn’t taken long for him to begin sorting out the logistics of moving back to the West home in Greenwich. Most of the studio’s furnishings had come with the apartment, so he knew he could squeeze his TV, books, decor, and wardrobe into his SUV for the trip home. On the day he finally left, the last thing he packed was the childhood family photo of himself, his parents, and Elizabeth.

There were still a few bored protesters wandering around the Green when Daniel carried his last bags down to his SUV, which he’d parked in the street below. He glanced over at the protestors, wondering if the redhead Lucretia was trying to recruit any of them or if her pals were around doing whatever they did when they were bored. He couldn’t tell from this distance and couldn’t be bothered to get closer, so he got into the SUV, started it up, and drove.

As he passed the closest point to the protests, he thought he heard glass breaking in the distance, but wasn’t sure. He kept going.

On the Green, one of the protesters stopped mid-step, stilled by shock. He had only tried to throw a rock at a group of hecklers in the doorway of a bar across the road, thinking it would discourage them. He hadn’t expected to miss, or for the rock to shatter the bar’s front window.

There was a roar of offense from inside the bar, and several men and women came rushing out, none of them completely sober. In moments, they were throwing punches and breaking placards. Most of the protesters backed off from what only the rock-thrower knew weren’t a gang of bullies. He knew none of those who’d been with him on the Green had come looking for a fight with some drunks, and fervently hoped the cops would arrive to break it up. Yet, a couple of the protesters apparently figured that drunks were less coordinated than themselves, and they fought back.

Police officers soon started calling for calm, and radioing for back-up, but the noise was already drawing people from neighboring bars. The rock-thrower doubted that any of them knew who was fighting who or what it was about, but tempers were hot, judgment had been lowered by booze, and before long, fights were spreading all across the Green.

Sirens heralded the arrival of a couple more squad cars, and a National Guard truck followed them. Troops vaulted to the ground, trying to herd random groups of people away from Church Street’s bars and restaurants, towards the far corner of the Green.

That was their biggest mistake.

Four guys in turtlenecks and buttoned shirts came down the short flight of steps from the rowhouse on the corner, Lucretia behind them. We’re under attack! one of the guys shouted. It’s a goddamn mob!

I guess we knew this day might come, Lucretia said, with an undertone of excitement. She started passing AR-15s to the four guys. Kill those unbelieving pigs.

The four guys took their weapons off safety, and then they opened fire into the crowd.

Greenwich, CT.

Daniel drove his SUV on