Hostile Genus: An Epic Military Sci-Fi Series (Invasive Species Book 2) Ben Stevens (best contemporary novels txt) 📖

The booming roll of thunder came the second Lucy finished her statement of the obvious. There were no trees up in this saddle, or anywhere nearby. No rock ledges, no caves. They would be whipped by wind and rain all night, it seemed.

Jon got up and walked over to Maya. She hadn’t spoken all day. She looked like a drowned mouse, or the ghost of a scorned lover—broken in damn near every sense of the word.

“Hey.” One word, simple, but the way in which he said it carried more warmth than the fire had been providing before the rains picked up. She sat, feet flat on the ground, with her legs bent before her, cradled by her arms. She peered over her knees at the dying fire and did not seem to sense Jon’s presence, word, or intent. He took off his jacket and draped it over her head and shoulders. That got her attention. She peered up at him from under the hood his jacket had made. He couldn’t tell the difference between the raindrops and tears on her face. In his characteristic way, Jon sucked his lips into his mouth, inhaling through his nose, then released them along with a long, slow sigh. He knelt down next to her, rain pouring down onto his head and forming two rivers that ran down his face and joined at his chin, to fall off.

“Hey,” he repeated. He could see now that she wasn’t actively weeping. It was just the rain after all. Nevertheless, he reached out and used the back of his fingers to brush the droplets off her face. His military jacket was doing a decent job of keeping more rain off. He sucked his lips in again, making an apologetic face. “I’m sorry,” he tried. She blinked at him and visibly relaxed. She shook her head side to side so subtly that it barely even registered.

“It’s fine. It’s just…” She looked away to the side as if to imply that she couldn’t give power to her thoughts by speaking them as long as she was looking at Jon. That it was too much. The intimacy of eye contact pushing the rising tide of emotion over the breaking point of the levee. “It’s just that now I’m questioning everything. Like why are we even doing this?” Now that it was spoken, now that she had said it, some of its power over her subsided.

Jon nodded equally as subtly and breathed another sigh. Her eyes jumped back to Jon’s face and locked into his own blue eyes, encircled by the rivulets of water. “Let’s say we find the Morning Star. Let’s say we get the answers we seek, the tools we need to defeat the Harvesters and can return Earth to how it was. Will we just be hated? Will we be no better than Warbak, pushing what we think is best onto people without their consent?”

Jon gulped. He did not know what to say.

“How can violence be justified if people don’t even want to be free?”

Jon felt something stir in him. Something he could not explain. A sense of déjà vu. But it was as elusive as those tears had been in this monsoon. He blinked and frowned, prompting Maya to do the same.

Jon noticed the hurt and concern on Maya’s face and dismissed the self-inquiry, rushing his words in an attempt to soothe and calm the goddess. “No, no. No. You’re right. But hear me out. I mean, yeah, okay, maybe we don’t have the right to free people from a situation that we think is deplorable. Maybe it’s morally wrong. Okay. I get that. But—”

“No buts,” Maya interrupted.

“No. I mean, yes. Listen. We messed up back there, that’s obvious now. But we are different than Warbak, all right? He knew better. We didn’t. I mean, we do now! We didn’t mean any harm. I know that doesn’t help how we feel right now, or the New Puebloans, but we can learn from this. Grow from it somehow. Warbak always knew what he was doing. He meant to do evil. His Ministry preached nothing but lies and propaganda. Sure, some nasty things come out of the Drops, like that urchin back there, but he never stopped there. He had everyone believing that everything and everyone who wasn’t fully human was a potential threat. Tagged and bagged. Step out of line just a little, and they’d whisk you away to Social Purity, never to be seen again. All the while he himself was Unpure and working with the Harvesters! Does that sound like something we’d do?”

Maya’s face sharpened as she listened. Encouraged by the sound of his own voice and the feeling that he was at least halfway making sense, Jon continued.

“And let’s look at the Harvesters. These things actively hunt down, capture, and enslave people against their will. Their prisoners don’t get the luxury of even the third-world accommodations that the people of Puebla got! They get pulled into a void, a black prison. Who knows what happens to them after that? I don’t, but I’m sure it’s not good!” Jon stammered a bit. He felt his argument turning into frustration and emotion. Somewhere in there was that elusive teardrop, that nagging green worm of doubt. That feeling that he had had this conversation, this very conflict before, and that he didn’t fully believe himself. The Harvesters were evil, of that he was sure.

“And now, thanks to our meddling, New Puebla may fall to them, the Harvesters,” Maya said flatly.

Jon started, his words forming a lump in his throat. She was right, of course, and they would have to live with that.

“I just… It’s just that—!” Jon floundered, lost in his rage, almost forgetting that he was initially trying to comfort Maya, not soapbox. Maya’s gaze drifted down to her folded arms and knees again.

Subconsciously, without even knowing it, Jon switched gears. Somewhere between