Monsters Win Wars: A Novella Read Online Free PDF Page B

be replaced by the
modest furniture that Emily and Henry had installed. They’d gone
out of their way to try and make their prisoner’s quarters
hospitable; they’d installed a proper lighting fixture, a small
table, and an old cot from the barracks that wasn’t being used.
Henry wanted to show that he and the rebels were not uncivilized,
and would treat him in a humane way. They wanted to be the better
people.
    After he’d been secured in his cell, two
Saurian guards were posted at the door. The president was only
alone for about a half-hour, when Henry came into the room. He was
accompanied by Emily. Aric and Rand waited outside. Despite Aric’s
suggestion that Rand perform the interrogation, Henry insisted that
he do it.
    “I don’t think we’ll need an interrogation
anyway.” Henry had said. “We have him backed into a corner. I think
we can appeal to his sense of reason, and show him that we have the
advantage.”
    “Alright,” Rand had said. “And when that
backfires, you know where I’ll be.”
    The president was sitting on his bunk,
staring at the floor when Henry walked in. Sallis no longer had the
look of terror he’d had on in the truck. He seemed to have gotten
acclimated to his situation.
    “Nice place you got here.” He said. “Needs a
new coat of paint I think.” Henry didn’t say anything, and just sat
down on the table next to the bed.
    For a few silent moments, they just stared at
each other, until Sallis said, “You can’t win.”
    Henry let Sallis’ words sit in his mind a
moment while he thought up a response. He knew the president was
just stalling, trying to buy time. At that moment, military ships
were combing the solar system trying to find him, looking under
every rock, inspecting every remote corner. It would only be a
matter of time before they found the base. Henry needed to work
fast if he was to get those security and command codes to reroute
the starships searching for him.
    “I have a list of codes that you are going to
give me.” Henry said.
    “We have you outnumbered and outgunned.”
    “Not necessarily.”
    “You’re talking about your lizard friends?”
Sallis said with a knowing smirk. “I’m surprised they contacted you
first.”
    “You knew about them?” Henry tried not to
show the shock on his face.
    “Maybe.” Sallis continued to smirk. He gave a
small chuckle. Henry remained silent, and the president continued,
“We found a few of their probes scattered around the solar system a
few years back. They were picking up communication signals; radio,
TV, Wi-Fi, things like that. Some of our scientists were able to
reverse the signal. We got a couple of jumbled images, and a few
recordings of them speaking in that hissing language.”
    “You knew about them all this time?” Henry
said. He tried to keep the shock and indignation out of his voice,
but could tell by the expression on Sallis’ face that it wasn’t
working.
    “We actually did think about telling the
public.” Sallis said. “You remember Morrow?” Henry nodded. Tony
Morrow had been a Press Secretary for the government before the
coup. The rebel leader remembered Morrow as an intelligent,
insightful, well-spoken, cynical man, with enough ambition for
twenty Napoleons. So naturally, when the new government needed a
propaganda manager, they went to Morrow.
    “He immediately suggested that we hold a
press conference and disclose everything we had. His idea was that
it would scare the ever-loving shit out of people, and…well…a
population is quite a bit easier to manage when they’re scared.”
The president started to laugh. Henry tried not to look too
annoyed. “It was brilliant; frighten them with threats of alien
lizard men. But we decided against it. We simply weren’t confident
enough in what the scientists had found. The audio and visual data
received was usually of so low quality, that it was difficult to
say for certain what was being shown or said.
    “There was also the