“I see,” Nina fumbled.
“You know, Mr. Brock came to see me when I first got here,” Lori said and Nina thought she saw a smile tug at on the edges of the woman’s lips.
“He did?”
“He told me that he really wants to find good parents for these kids. Some of them are young and will need full time moms and dads.”
“Full time…oh.”
“Yes,” Lori said. “He also mentioned your name. Something about warning me about you…”
…Nina walked on to the patio deck of the condo complex.
Jim Brock sat holding a newspaper with his back to the door and speaking to an elderly resident of Wrightsville Beach.
“I mean, what the hell is this?” His hands waved as he read an article. “Who does this guy think he is? That’s a whole town of people, like us. I mean, Jesus, I thought this Empire was supposed to be the good guys. What if we say ‘no’ to this Trevor guy?”
Nina saw the masthead at the top of the paper: The New American Press. She could also read the headline: TREVOR SLAUGHTERS VILLAGE.
Inevitably, the news spread although the fact that it had already spread to an outpost such as Wilmington surprised her, particularly from a fringe publication like The New American Press. Whoever ran that rag had obviously been in a hurry to get the word out.
“What kind of people do this?” Jim ranted, unaware Nina walked onto the patio behind him. “I mean, just like the Nazis or something. These were people! It could’ve been us!”
Her shadow fell over his shoulder and he turned.
“Oh, um,” Jim put down the newspaper. “Hello. Nina.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you that mad,” she said as Jim stood.
“Oh, I, hey, um, Nina, like, I don’t think you’re like that. I don’t think you’re a Nazi. I know you wouldn’t have anything to do with anything like that.”
“You don’t know that, Jim. You don’t know me at all.”
“I’d like to,” he said. “But I get the feeling I’m not going to get that chance.”
“We spent a nice couple of days down here. For me, the picnic and the walking on the beach; it was a nice little escape. Like my shopping trip with Denise. A fantasy.”
“Fantasies aren’t real,” he pointed out.
She shook her head ‘no’ in agreement. “I can’t really afford any fantasies these days. I was born for this war. I have to be who I am. I don’t take strolls on beaches; I don’t sit under the moonlight and make wishes on stars. I don’t,” she paused, considered for a long hard moment, and then went on: “I don’t wear party dresses.”
“I see.”
“Maybe, when all this is over. If it ever is over. Until then, I have to be strong and I have to keep on fighting. I don’t need therapy. I don’t need a shoulder to cry on.”
“You need someone who understands you.”
“Could be,” she admitted. “Could be that I don’t need anyone at all.”
“Everyone needs someone, Nina. Even the strong.”
“Is that why you went to the Administrator’s office yesterday?”
He nodded and repeated, “Everyone needs someone.”
“Thank you for recommending that Denise lives with me. That was nice of you.”
“I did it for her,” Brock said. “Okay, so, yeah, I did it a little for you, too. Mostly I did it for Denise. She never had a mother, not really. I couldn’t be that for her. She learned about how to be a girl from old magazines and movies.”
Nina said, “Those old magazines and movies are about a world that’s gone.”
“I took care of the kids as best I could but you’re right, there are things Denise needs to learn that I can’t teach her. Partly because I don’t know, maybe partly because I’m not ready to see what the world is really like now. Not ready, to, I guess, except things as they are.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Brock glanced at the newspaper on the patio table and solemnly said, “I always thought…I always thought that the meek were supposed to inherit the Earth. Isn’t that what they told us in Sunday school?”
She shook her head because the man could not be more wrong. Nina had seen that first hand in New Winnabow. A reminder she had needed.
“The meek are dead. They were wiped out. This world belongs to the strong.”
He answered softly, “That isn’t right.”
“Right or wrong has nothing to do with it. It’s not about that. It’s about what has to be done. It’s about reality. You know that. You survived all these years.”
“I survived by hiding,” he confessed. “You survive by fighting. I guess we’re on the same planet, but living in different worlds.”
“Yes.”
He smiled, a little, in a conciliatory fashion.
“Teach that to Denise,” he told her. “Teach her to be strong.”
“She’s half way there already.”
“Oh and Nina, if you allow it, you might just learn something, too. You never know.”
Nina took a step forward, placed a hand on his neck, and then put her lips to his in a gentle kiss that took him by surprise.
“Goodbye, Jim. I hope you find your place in all this.”
I know I have.
Nina Forest walked away from Jim Brock.
He touched his lips and wondered. He wondered, could anyone get through that tough skin and find a way into that heart?
And what did it all mean?
What had it been for?
Trevor Stone needed that answer.
He could not find that answer-he would not find that answer-sitting behind his desk at the estate. He would not find that answer behind the veils of his Emperor’s title or gazing at a map.
He sought that answer in the thick of the fight.
When Shepherd’s second brigade stormed the Hivvan hard point at a strip mall outside of Rowan, North Carolina, Trevor Stone fired the first shots.
When infiltrators were needed to circumvent enemy picket lines around the juncture of Routes 87 and 701 south of Bladen Lakes Forest, Stone led the way.
When the largest group of Hivvan forces-more than 2,000-were caught on the move headed toward Fayetteville, Trevor jumped on a Bradley fighting vehicle and personally led the maneuver to hook around and hit that enemy on their northern flank.
For every Hivvan he cut down, Trevor saw a face from New Winnabow. He kept score.
A dozen lizards killed. Another alien tank destroyed. A hundred Hivvans fallen by Trevor’s own bullets, his own grenades, his own bayonet. How many would it take to even the ledger? How many must he kill to pay the bill?
After several days of fighting, of bombarding, and of sniping, the cut off Hivvan Corp was reduced to a headquarters unit outside of Parkersburg. The lizard men occupied a camping ground off Little Coharie creek.
Trevor Stone personally commanded the final assault, despite General Shepherd’s misgivings.
The Hivvans dug trenches and pill boxes.
Flamethrowers chased the defenders out.
The Hivvans responded with Firecats and shock troops.
Humvees mounted with TOW launchers and a well-coordinated flanking maneuver annihilated that counter-
