War of Alien Aggression 1 Hardway by A.D. Bloom Read Free Book Online

to make sure I wasn't going to spread doubt and endanger us all?"
    "No, Ram. I came on my own because there's things I had to say to you. And.. and I know there's things you wanted to say to me since I arrived."
    He'd had things he needed to say to Mickey for a lot longer than that, things he'd ground his teeth on for years after she sent him away to Staas and the Academy, but he'd come to terms with those himself. "Look. Mickey... On the way here... Back in the tube before you shot up past me, all I wanted... All I was trying to say was 'thank you'. For... for not letting me starve. For teaching me to read. For everything I've got. For who I am. I know you could have left me where you found me. I know you didn't have to do what you did."
    "I only took care of you for a few years, Ram. It wasn't a big deal."
    "It was a big deal to me." Ram hated her for sending him away, but he'd never say she did him wrong. She paid sixteen years tuition, room, and board upfront. He'd never been hungry ever again. If it wasn't for her, then he'd probably have perished and if by some miracle he hadn't, then he'd probably be one of the hungry billions.
    Mickey knew all that. She knew he knew it too. She smiled at Ram, and after it faded, she banged the back of her helmet against the bulkhead a couple of more times. "You remember what I had to do for money back then, right, Ram?" He nodded. Of course he remembered. Mickey used her guns to make money. She killed people. Gang hits. And he knew even back then that there weren't any other jobs for her except in space and if she didn't want to ditch him, then she had to use the only in-demand skills she had. It was that or they'd have both have ended up back in hell where she found him. "Look I don't want you to get the wrong idea, Ram. I'm not saying I wouldn't have done that anyway... just to survive. Even if I didn't have you to take care of, I still might have done that for work. I'm not saying I did it for you." But she did do it for him, though. Ram knew that. The way it worked out, she did. She hated it. But she still did it. That debt had always been on the books. It always would be.
    "Mickey, I know it would have been easier without me. I bet you could have gone up the well into space and got other work more than once after you found me. But you didn't and I owe you e-"
    She banged her helmet against the bulkhead again and again. "Ugh. Ram. Shut the hell up . I'm not saying this because I want you to thank me. I'm trying to tell you why...  No...no... how I did what I did... Because you need to know. What I'm trying to say is I couldn't have done it without you – without you to do it for . It was bad, doing it at all, and I know it wasn't just for you. I needed the money, too, but 'cause I was doing it for you... that's what made it... not okay, but...bearable. That's what let me do it and not hate myself. I chose to do something wrong. It was a choice I made and it helped make a bigger right." 
    But that's not the way it works, Ram thought. You can make right from wrong. It was Mickey who taught him that. It was Mickey who slapped the words out his mouth when he'd said different once. "Harry Cozen murdered ten innocent miners," Ram said. "He wants us to start a war."
    "I'm not defending him. I can't. I won't."
    "But why , Mickey?" Even though there were only two of them on the secure comms channel, she whispered her next words.  
    "Listen to me. This war is coming and nothing will change that." 
    "You've met them before, haven't you...Where? How?"
    "Listen," she hissed. "Remember these words, Ram: 'War is the way of the stars'."
    "What the hell does that mean?"
    "Just remember it. Look, if this war doesn't start today , like this on Moriah , then when it does happen, we will lose. We will lose, Ram. Don't ask me how I know because I won't tell you, but this war has got to start now. It's got to start as soon as possible and it's got to start in a way that leaves humanity with no