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"We will see," I mumbled.
"Pardon, ma'am?"
"Nothing, take me back to the FOB," I ordered.
"Yes, ma'am."
The large, heavy vehicle rumbled over the terrain, so different from the swaying of the ship or a horse, and even though we weren't going very fast, I felt dizzy, unaccustomed to the speed any longer.
Bannister knew better than to ask me questions about where I had been, understanding full well that this kind of information was above his paygrade, but I felt the curiosity burning off him just as it did from the others.
The driver must have radioed in my miraculous reappearance because Svelvick's personal assistant, Caroline Dempsey, greeted me by the front entrance.
Without much fanfare, she announced, "He's waiting for you, ma'am."
I had expected nothing less, and without a look back, I followed her through the large assembly hall that made up the entrance to the FOB, through metallic corridors, into an elevator that took us down to the more secure bunker levels.
I assessed my surroundings as a conquering officer would. The doors to the elevator bay were forged from the hardest steel and could be sealed off within seconds. No intruder would make it down here, just like any attack on Grymburg would be repelled if it wasn't from the air or aided by bombs and missiles.
I knew that food, water, and supplies were also stored down here. The five thousand souls living at the FOB would be able to sustain themselves for months. Secret underground tunnels would allow soldiers to filter out and fall into the enemy's back. Attempting to take the FOB with brute force, no matter how many attacked, would result in the slaughter of the invaders.
Invaders, I mused. Was one an invader when defending one's home?
We reached the hallway housing the higher-ranking officers' offices and meeting rooms. Caroline took me straight to his office, where she only knocked once before opening the door and ushering me inside, closing the door from the outside.
Svelvick sat behind his desk. He was a gloomy man who had lost his hair a long time ago. He was in his fifties, but still in top shape. He trained daily with his soldiers, which was why we all adored him so. Would die for him. Or I would have. Now I wasn't so sure; it all hinged on one question.
Without preamble, I went straight for the jugular. "Did you know?"
He didn't disappoint or play coy. "You dug your own grave in that meeting, Colonel."
I nodded while my stomach dropped, even though I had expected nothing less. I had hoped it wasn't so, but deep in my gut, I had known.
He assessed me from head to toe. His expression remained neutral, neither happy nor irritated to see me alive, and I figured he must have questions of his own, which he came to just as straightforwardly as I had. "Why did you come back?"
"You knew they took me?" I stalled.
He sighed and rose from behind his desk. "You do remember we use drones, don't you?"
I didn't answer, and he moved around to cross his arms over his chest and to lean against the desk, facing me instead of hiding behind it. "Even if I hadn't suspected that they took you, because we didn't find yours or Corporal Sullivan's bodies anywhere, your image…" he extended one hand holding a remote, to bring a large screen to my right, to life. On it, I recognized myself standing atop Grymburg's battlements surrounded by the Vandall king, Brogan, Kendryx, Alahna, and others. All of them enemies to the Terran Confederation. "…spoke volumes."
I remembered that day, remembered how Brogan had ordered the drones shot down, and how I warned how futile the act was because the Terran Confederation would produce new drones just as fast as Brogan's men's arrows.
"We've kept this our little secret for now, Colonel." Svelvick glanced at me, trying hard to appear benevolent to find out what I told the Thyres and where I stood. "Having you reappear from the dead would be a great morale booster for the troops."
If you play ball, was the implied threat.
He pretended to think about it. "Having you publicly executed for treason would serve as a warning for how great the Thyres are at brainwashing," he continued pleasantly.
"I want to speak to the Terran Delegation and the board," I demanded.
He shrugged. "They won't tell you anything different than I just did."
Svelvick had been my greatest hope for an ally in this. I had always thought of him as a great man, a fair man, but it seemed he had been bought by the Terran Delegation, which actually made sense since he was the CO—Commanding Officer—of this base, the one in charge of all five thousand soldiers. He and ten Terran Delegates, who were in charge of a handful of scientists, roamed the countryside for samples to see what could be exploited from Thyre besides it being a great resource for settlement and freeing humans.
The board, however, was made up of military men and women, officers in charge of groups of soldiers, who couldn't have all been bought, just like the Terran Confederation had never bothered to try to buy me. Those men and women were my only other chance to turn the tide—if Svelvick allowed me to speak to them, which obviously wasn't his intention.
"So you knew that the Thyres weren't holding the humans enslaved? That this entirerescuemission is nothing but a farce to conquer this planet and exploit it?"
