Tommy

This time, Tommy walked through the checkpoint with his head held high.

In the days following his run-in with the off-duty soldiers, he'd done a lot of soul-searching. He'd replayed his conversation with Seamus in his mind a dozen times. It would have been easier to stay home, curl up under the covers, and binge-watch another season of pre-invasion TV. Safer, too.

But he knew that if he did that, the feeling would never go away.

So he'd called the clinic. Linda was more than happy to let him know that those two problematic guards weren't on duty, and he'd only needed to put up with some not-so-subtle looks and a visual pat-down on his way in this time.

When he swung open the door to the rec room there were unfamiliar faces waiting for him.

"Tommy! Glad to see you, my young friend." Seamus was sitting on the same leather couch he'd occupied the last time Tommy had seen him, without a controller in his hand this time. Instead, he gripped a rocks glass with an amber liquid inside it. He set it down as Tommy entered, ice clinking softly against the rim.

"A bit early in the day for a drink, isn't it?" Tommy smiled back.

"Oh, this is just watered-down coke," Seamus grinned around two missing teeth. "Let me introduce you." He gestured in turn to the other two men in the room. "This is Danny, and that's Jordan over there in the corner. Lads, this is Tommy. I think I mentioned him to you."

Danny was a wiry man, six foot tall at least, and angular in the face. His eyes took in Tommy's arrival with quick darting movements, half concealed behind a mop of unruly hair that fell over his face like a shaggy black pelt. He was sitting next to Seamus in the same place that Tommy had sat, with an unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and a hand rifling through the pockets of his jeans.

"Hey Tommy," he said, rolling the cigarette around his mouth. "Aha!" He fished a lighter from a back pocket and then stood, the couch creaking as he rose. "Sorry to dash out straight away, but I really need this right now. You smoke?"

"No," said Tommy.

"Shame. I never get company on my smoke breaks," he said as he sidled past, the acrid leathery smell of tobacco following him.

"Jordan, say hello to Tommy," Seamus prompted, and a man-mountain in the corner grunted, extending a hand over the top of the book he was reading in a brief wave. His attention immediately returned to the pages.

"Are these the 'associates' you told me about Seamus?" Tommy asked, feeling a little out of depth.

"Two of them," Seamus acknowledged, before craning his head over a shoulder to holler at the large man. "Oi, Jordan! Help me up to the table, will you? This isn't a couch conversation."

"Hmmph,"

The book lowered, and Tommy finally saw the man hidden behind it. Jordan was bearded, bushy-browed and big in every direction, with the kind of muscle that came from hard physical labour and a few too many chocolate milks. When he rose, the armchair that he'd been seated in scooted back several inches until it bumped up against the walls in the corner of the room.

Jordan lumbered over and reached around the side of the leather couch to pick up an object made of metal and plastic that Tommy couldn't identify. Then the large man pulled at either side of it, and the object unfolded with a click.

A folding wheelchair?

"Upsy daisy," Jordan rumbled, sliding one hand under Seamus' knees and passing the other around his back. He lifted the man without effort, sliding him up off the couch and into the chair.

"I could do it myself, but watching me struggle tends to make people uncomfortable," Seamus said jovially as he backed the chair up away from the couch and wheeled himself towards a wooden table in the middle of the room.

"I didn't even realise you were paraplegic," Tommy said, half apologetically. Come to think of it, he never left the couch last time.

"Caught a plasma splash across my back in the first few days of the invasion," Seamus explained. "Ricochet. Apparently, there are limits to what the wrinklies' fancy medicine can do for total nerve loss. Or if there aren't, they're keeping the good stuff for themselves."

"You were a soldier then?"

"Army cook. Some shit-for-brains decided to be a hero when the wrinklies rolled up on us on the second day of the war. He took a dirt nap, I took a seat for the rest of my life."

"Fuck."

"Worst part? The bitch who did it couldn't stop crying. Tried to apologise as I lay there on the floor smoking. Like what the actual fuck?" He took another sip of his drink, moving the chair in jerky motions with one hand until he was positioned in a place at the table. "They invade a planet, kill half the people there and then get all hung up about a couple more soldiers. Because we were men. You can't make that shit up. And that's their weakness."

"What's that?"

"They're soft." Seamus reached a hand beneath the table, and with a soft click, a hidden drawer on its underside popped out. He reached into it and procured a skinny bottle, as well as a couple of glasses.

He held one up and raised an eyebrow at Jordan, who shook his head and walked back over to his corner perch, the armchair creaking as he sunk back into it and picked his book up again.

"Getting harder to find this stuff," Seamus said, turning back to Tommy. "Fancy a drop? Hard to say when or if real scotch is going to come back."

"Sure," Tommy had never tried the stuff before, just the odd beer at a party. How different could it be?

The liquid fire burned on its way down his throat, and then a second time when he coughed, and it made its way up into his nostrils.

Seamus just raised an eyebrow as Tommy sat the glass down, spluttering. "Whatcha reckon?" he asked with a grin.

Tommy wiped at his face, nose still wrinkling from the sting of the alcohol. "Tastes like oven cleaner."

"Hmmph. Young people," Seamus snorted. "No appreciation for the finer things." He took Tommy's glass from him carefully, then upended it into his own. "No sense wasting good liquor on you then. There's beer in the fridge if that's more your speed."

"Anything to wash that down."

Once Tommy had settled back down into his seat with a bottle, the older man leaned forward, scooting his wheelchair a little closer to the table. "Now, you said in your message you wanted to speak to me. What brings you in today, Tommy?"

"What we talked about last time. How there are ways to fight back. I want in."

Seamus sipped at his glass and sighed in contentment before turning his attention back to Tommy. "I thought you might. You understand what that involves, right? You'll be putting yourself in… vulnerable situations with them."

"I'll do whatever it takes. I want to make a difference. Make them hurt."

Seamus studied him for a long moment, then nodded. "Good. Then let's discuss—" The door to the rec room opened, and Tommy stiffened, about to turn around, but Seamus just smiled and gestured to the open seat next to Tommy. "Ah, Danny's back. Good timing," he said.

The tall man slid down into the offered chair, and the harsh smell of his tobacco clawed its way up Tommy's abused nostrils to mingle with the lingering whisky vapors. "Did I miss anything?" Danny asked, leaning in conspiratorially.

"Danny manages a few other individuals, who, like yourself, Tommy, have had it with the Imperium and don't mind getting their hands dirty," Seamus kept his voice low, still studying Tommy's face. "He'll be the one to show you the ropes, and your contact, who you'll report to if something comes up. If you can prove to us that you're the right man for the job."

"I told you, I'll do anything."

Seamus leaned back. "And that's great and all, but not everyone has a stomach for what you'll be expected to do for us. For all of us."

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"I can kill—"

"Cool your jets. You won't be killing anyone."

"I… what? But you said—"

"I asked you what you thought their weaknesses were, and you were right. But if you think you can just whack one on the head 'with a shovel or something' and get away clean you're wrong, and dead besides."

"We've tried that," Danny added. "And lost some good people. Even with their suits off, the aliens are riddled with technology. Subdermal chips, neural implants, the works. If one of their troops flatlines, they know about it, and they know where they are. At all times. We have intel from a reliable source that even their brass are walking around with active tracking, ever since the big hit last week."

"What big hit?" Tommy asked.

"Our American sisters managed to take out a good chunk of their special forces," Seamus grinned. "Our informants tell us that really stirred up the hive. The aliens are on high alert right now, which will make your job more difficult."

"Well, if I'm not killing them, what is my job then?" Tommy's words came out harsher than he'd intended, and his foot tapped at the floor in agitation. What was the point of even coming here?

"You're making friends with them," Danny said, looping an arm around Tommy's shoulder and leaning in, his stale breath tickling at Tommy's ear. "You know what's more important than one fuckin' soldier? The whole damn war. If we can win the intelligence game, the whole galactic rort that the Empire's got going on could come down in flames. We just need the right match and a nice big spark."

"The wrinklies have the tech to send messages faster than light through their wormhole gateways," Seamus explained. "But the closest one is months away by ship, and they're not about to build one for us any time soon. They've got a nice little information blockade going on to keep what's happening on Earth out of the ears of their precious home systems, but people talk." He took another sip of his whisky. "Soldiers go on leave eventually, ships get rotated, and word gets around. They're trying to keep any evidence of the things they're still doing to us off their internet and out of the news cycle, and they have good reason to."

"Some of their fringe worlds are already touch and go for the Imperium," Danny nodded. "If we can stir the pot a bit, entire species could defect. We'd have friends, with advanced technology and weaponry, and they'd be living closer to us than the Imperium's cradle worlds. It's the only way out from under the thumb, even if it's a long shot."

"The fuck are you talking about?" Tommy asked, his temper fraying at the barrage of information. "There's no internet, how can you know what's going on in America? How could you possibly know all this stuff about their communications?"

"We have informants," Seamus replied. "Aliens who tell us things. Some of them work with us willingly because they hate what the Imperium did to humanity. Others just have loose lips or bad operational security."

"You're working with wrinklies?" Tommy snarled.

"And other species besides," Seamus confirmed. "They're people Tommy. Advanced beyond our wildest dreams, like modern man visiting our pygmy village in the jungle, but make no mistake, they're people. And this is war. War makes people do all sorts of things. Things like killing innocents 'by accident' or betraying their government when they feel like they're on the wrong side of history."

He smiled thinly. "Or drinking away their problems whispering sweet nothings into a handsome young lad's ear. You're not trained. We don't need you to do anything risky, you'd only get yourself caught. Your only job will be to make nice with the right aliens. Make them feel bad for you, get them talking. Maybe pick up a few useful bits of information here and there. Eventually, if that pans out, you might be able to convince them to do some of our work for us. But that's a long way off yet."

"Hell no," Tommy was fuming. "I hate their guts. How the hell do you expect me to play nice with the people who burned down everything I love?"

"The same way you were expecting to have a chance at killing them when you walked in that door," Danny said, leaning close. "You're a young bloke, and on the skinnier side. Not too tall either. There's no way they're not already falling over each other to talk to you.

"And I fucking hate it," Tommy said. "You're saying it's because I'm skinny?"

"Their uh, beauty standards are a bit different to ours," Danny shrugged. "I hear their men are a lot closer to anorexic than might be safe for a human, but you've got potential. Show a bit more skin, maybe trim just a little fat from your belly, and you'll be tripping over alien chicks who'd tell you whatever you wanted to know for a chance at more."

"I came in here thinking I'd be killing these bitches," Tommy swigged at his beer, then slammed it down on the table. It bubbled up, threatening to overflow. "Now we're talking about how I need to get ripped to please them?"

"You thought you'd be luring them in for one reason, and now we're telling you there's a better one," Seamus set his glass down, his tone turning firm. "Big picture time Tommy. You stick one of their soldiers with a knife and you'll die screaming." His eyes unfocused, going distant. "Plasma burns. It's not a nice way to go out." He looked Tommy in the eyes, and the intensity returned to his gaze. "So either you're on board, and you forget about that black widow shit, or we go our separate ways and you go back to sitting in your foster family's spare bedroom shooting aliens on your Xbox."

Tommy flinched. Right, I did some venting the last time. He swirled his beer, watching the liquid within the brown bottle as it circled the glass, then took another long sip, considering their words even as his blood boiled. If they were right about the trackers and the Imperium being able to find its dead soldiers then he was back to square one on the 'killing alien bitches' front.

They were offering another way to hurt the Imperium, one that sounded like it might work. But still…

"You let me think I'd be killing them on purpose," he said, and he watched Seamus' expression carefully across the table from him.

The man didn't refute the accusation. "I did," he acknowledged, looking Tommy straight in the eyes.

"Why?

"You were angry," he said simply. "You needed the path forward to be something you chose, to have control over it. You had to come back here wanting to hurt the Imperium before we could tell you what we really do. Would you have heard me out if I'd floated the idea last time?

Tommy didn't answer that.

"Exactly. You're a smart lad, Tommy. You know all this makes sense. For the record, I'd rather their fleet had a big old Death Star exhaust port we could lob a missile down. But beggars can't be choosers. This is how to hurt them best."

"Search my feelings, I know it to be true?" Tommy raised an eyebrow, and even Jordan in the corner couldn't help but huff in amusement as the other two men cracked smiles. "There's something else."

"What's that then?"

"Well, I'd be luring these… women… places to get them on board, maybe even to tell me things, right? Surely, they're not just going to spill a bunch of military secrets the moment I smile at them."

"Some of them will already be sympathisers. Any time that's the case, we'll tell you. You're not wrong though. There will be women who just want to use you and nothing more. You probably won't get anywhere with those ones. That's life."

"Sure, but like… if I'm a honeypot then they're going to expect me to do things, right? How am I meant to avoid that?"

"Avoid what?" Seamus asked with a shit-eating grin.

"You know, sex stuff?" Tommy flushed.

"That's the neat part," Seamus' grin grew.

Oh fuck that.