Orbital by bill zhao copyright 2017 Bill Zhao Table of Contents act one (earth)

and shot her in the head.
14
Lonesome Road
2:14 AM
Luna, Solar System
Derek sat silently in the STN as Carter drove it. They were a long way
from the base after travelling on the surface for over 45 minutes.
Carter interrupted the silence and asked “You know what the Northern
Coalition was?”
Derek replied “Yeah, the Russian-Chinese alliance that got dismantled
by an ice age. Tens of millions of soldiers, forced to surrender to
America to survive. They turned on their leader, tucked tail and ran.”

---

“
Yeah” Carter replied “But that’s only half the story. A bulk of the force
defected. Over to USOC. That’s how they got so much power so quickly.
Back then USOC were smaller but they s ll operated everywhere, and
being short of men was one phrase they never wanted to hear. We all label
them power hungry. That’s more or less literally it. They’re consumed and
grown all because of that huge force. The past century, they’re just been
using it to take over our galaxy one planet at a me.”
“
Fine, but what does that have to do with this?” asked Derek.
“
Power, mate. If you let too much of yourself become made up of
something else, are you s ll you? Besides, you’ll find out more soon
enough.”
“
Nice story but what the bloody fuck are we going to do now? The base is
overrun and our only means of ge ng you the Icarus would have been
seized by the damn galac c police. USOC sure have got nerve. A full on
assault on our fucking base. They must have used all or their troops on the
damn moon.”
“
Wait… all of their troops… This could mean that their own moon
headquarters are light on defences.” Carter slammed the brake and the
STN slowed to a stop. He looked back at Derek and said “This is one of our
field ready STNs so that means if the damn engineer didn’t touch it, it
should have a couple of power shields and guns in the trunk. Hopefully the
guys back home made enough replicas. Go look.”