Read Online Haywire by Justin R. Macumber - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Justin R. Macumber
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turning cool. “He was troubled, yes, but he was also a genius, and his Titan project was the only thing that stopped the Hezrin from destroying us and taking Earth.”
Shawn knew the Titans were important to his mother, knew it better than anyone else in the universe aside from his father, and in the dark reaches of his mind he thought they were more important to her than he was. Because of that his feelings about them were less than biased. Had there been a religion built up around the Titans, he was sure she would have been the High Priestess. Her focus on them to the detriment of everything else angered him more than he usually let on.
“ Oh please. We didn’t need them. We could’ve just nuked them to death. It worked on Charon didn’t it?”
She tilted her head in what he thought of as her professor pose. “Charon was an outlying colony, Shawn. Barely more than a dozen people were stationed there. When faced with an invading alien species, the math was obvious.”
He rolled his eyes. “Right. Didn’t they also bomb Triton too?”
“ Sadly, yes.” She finished her coffee and set the empty cup down with a hard clank on the counter. “It was their only option though, despite what the revisionists want you to believe. When the Hezrin attacked, they did it in numbers we couldn’t hope to match. They were too many and too powerful. Our only option was to use the most devastating weapons we had. Anything less would have been meaningless. Worse than that – it would have been suicidal. We couldn’t let the Hezrin take the colonies and use them against us. We could not let ourselves become their slaves.”
“ Better death, huh?”
She didn’t respond to that at first, but after several deep breaths said, “It’s hard being cavalier when talking about the deaths of thousands. Back then it was probably even harder. But the American Alliance and the Eurasian Systems Union knew, in the final analysis, that the choice was clear.”
A swell of anger washed over Shawn’s face, warming him against the townhouse’s chronic chill. “Until Earth, that is, right?” He tried to keep the scorn out of his voice, but he knew he’d failed when his mother shook her head.
“ Don’t let those colony propagandists fool you, Shawn. All the settlements we’ve established are valuable, but none of them – none – is as important as Earth. Even Luna would have been destroyed if it meant keeping Earth safe. Earth is where we came from. It’s our home.”
Shawn rolled his eyes. He’d been born in Seattle, Washington, but he’d spent most of his life living on Luna and then on Mars, so for him Earth wasn’t all that special. It certainly wasn’t his home. His friends were even less charitable, especially those whose parents had lost their jobs. Whenever the economy got tight, everyone suffered but Earth. That was where the money always flowed to. He knew he didn’t understand the intricacies of interplanetary economics, but he saw the big picture as clearly as everyone else. Earth came first. Everyone else fought it out for a distant second.
“ Luckily that was when Dr. Groesbeck stepped forward and unveiled his plan for stopping the Hezrin,” his mother said. “The Titans. Who would have thought that something as tiny as nanites could come together and make something so powerful?”
“ Groesbeck, I guess?”
It was a poor joke, but his mother patted him on the arm and laughed anyway.
“ Exactly. Only someone brilliant or insane could have conceived of them. Nanites had been used before across a wide variety of applications, from medical probes to starship construction, but no one had ever thought to use them to rebuild a human being into a god.”
Inhaling sharply, Shawn sucked a lump of egg into his throat, and he had to cough several times before it cleared. When he had his breath again he said, “A god who abandons the people they swore to protect? Doesn’t sound all that divine to me.”
Scorn
Shawn knew the Titans were important to his mother, knew it better than anyone else in the universe aside from his father, and in the dark reaches of his mind he thought they were more important to her than he was. Because of that his feelings about them were less than biased. Had there been a religion built up around the Titans, he was sure she would have been the High Priestess. Her focus on them to the detriment of everything else angered him more than he usually let on.
“ Oh please. We didn’t need them. We could’ve just nuked them to death. It worked on Charon didn’t it?”
She tilted her head in what he thought of as her professor pose. “Charon was an outlying colony, Shawn. Barely more than a dozen people were stationed there. When faced with an invading alien species, the math was obvious.”
He rolled his eyes. “Right. Didn’t they also bomb Triton too?”
“ Sadly, yes.” She finished her coffee and set the empty cup down with a hard clank on the counter. “It was their only option though, despite what the revisionists want you to believe. When the Hezrin attacked, they did it in numbers we couldn’t hope to match. They were too many and too powerful. Our only option was to use the most devastating weapons we had. Anything less would have been meaningless. Worse than that – it would have been suicidal. We couldn’t let the Hezrin take the colonies and use them against us. We could not let ourselves become their slaves.”
“ Better death, huh?”
She didn’t respond to that at first, but after several deep breaths said, “It’s hard being cavalier when talking about the deaths of thousands. Back then it was probably even harder. But the American Alliance and the Eurasian Systems Union knew, in the final analysis, that the choice was clear.”
A swell of anger washed over Shawn’s face, warming him against the townhouse’s chronic chill. “Until Earth, that is, right?” He tried to keep the scorn out of his voice, but he knew he’d failed when his mother shook her head.
“ Don’t let those colony propagandists fool you, Shawn. All the settlements we’ve established are valuable, but none of them – none – is as important as Earth. Even Luna would have been destroyed if it meant keeping Earth safe. Earth is where we came from. It’s our home.”
Shawn rolled his eyes. He’d been born in Seattle, Washington, but he’d spent most of his life living on Luna and then on Mars, so for him Earth wasn’t all that special. It certainly wasn’t his home. His friends were even less charitable, especially those whose parents had lost their jobs. Whenever the economy got tight, everyone suffered but Earth. That was where the money always flowed to. He knew he didn’t understand the intricacies of interplanetary economics, but he saw the big picture as clearly as everyone else. Earth came first. Everyone else fought it out for a distant second.
“ Luckily that was when Dr. Groesbeck stepped forward and unveiled his plan for stopping the Hezrin,” his mother said. “The Titans. Who would have thought that something as tiny as nanites could come together and make something so powerful?”
“ Groesbeck, I guess?”
It was a poor joke, but his mother patted him on the arm and laughed anyway.
“ Exactly. Only someone brilliant or insane could have conceived of them. Nanites had been used before across a wide variety of applications, from medical probes to starship construction, but no one had ever thought to use them to rebuild a human being into a god.”
Inhaling sharply, Shawn sucked a lump of egg into his throat, and he had to cough several times before it cleared. When he had his breath again he said, “A god who abandons the people they swore to protect? Doesn’t sound all that divine to me.”
Scorn
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