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  PROTOCOL

  MM HOLT

  Copyright © 2018

  All rights reserved by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author. Reviewers may quote brief passages in reviews.

  Dedicated to the continuing struggle against the Accord of Nations.

  Prologue

  I LOWERED THE barrel of the heavy, alien rifle, easing it gently down until my left hand rested on the dripping edge of the building's roof, eighty floors above the rain-soaked streets below.

  Seeking the target.

  I scanned along the rooftop of a skyscraper fifteen hundred yards away, one of many giants in a cluster of skyscrapers along the edge of Hong Kong Harbor. The crosshairs moved over clutter of air conditioner intakes, stairway entrance hutches, exhaust outlets, all of them veiled by heavy, tropical rain.

  Then, I found what I was looking for: the dark S of Octavia's lustrous ponytail, glistening with raindrops, holding its own against the deluge in a way no human hair ever could.

  Because Octavia was no human.

  I ranged the rifle scope down the length of Octavia's blue uniform. The patches on her chest came into view. On one side, a badge indicated her high rank; on the other, the insignia of her alien nation from the planet Rome. Further down, the crosshairs travelled along the glory of her figure, the narrowness of her waist, the swell of her hips, and the extraordinary length of her legs. Octavia was a male fantasy, the kind that had been forbidden on Earth for centuries.

  Keep your focus, Burns, I told myself. Keep your focus.

  I moved the heavy sights gently up again. Now Octavia's face came into view. It was also another miracle of beauty: womanly yet girlish; vulnerable yet strong; soft yet determined. She wore makeup, which itself was bizarre because no Earth female had worn make up in living memory, not since the establishment of the Accord of Nations hundreds of years ago. Same with her hair. Most women of the Accord wore their hair short or even shaved.

  But Octavia was not most women.

  She appeared to be my age, no more than thirty, but it was impossible determine how old she actually was in alien years. She might have been just a few years old; she might have been hundreds of years old, or thousands, or hundreds of thousands. Her age, like her appearance, like her spacecraft, and the nature of her planet, were unknown to everyone on Earth, as mysterious as the night sky.

  I breathed out slowly, keeping the sights steady--and I watched her, waiting till she was still. Fifteen hundred yards is far. I had to be sure I would hit my target, because if I missed, Octavia would not give me a second chance.

  She moved slowly about the roof, sniffing the rainy air with rabbity twitches of her nose. The nape of her neck came into view. It looked so vulnerable, so easily snapped, or crushed, or blown away by a blast from the rifle. But one shot would definitely not be enough--not even one from a weapon made by her own kind.

  Perhaps no weapon would be enough.

  I breathed out slowly and counted my heartbeats, keeping Octavia in the crosshairs of the virtual sights.

  And then Octavia turned to sniff the air in my direction.

  The shot was on, but a question nagged at me. Could I really shoot a woman--even an alien one? It was unthinkable, but it was necessary. I had to keep telling myself that. It was necessary--for everyone, for Earth.

  And I had done it once already.

  Octavia frowned. Had she sensed I was nearby? It certainly looked like it. Now, the situation was about to become far more dangerous--as if it wasn't dangerous enough already.

  I was Octavia's obsession. Yes, me, Alex Burns, a twenty-six-year-old lieutenant in the Accord of Nations Navy. A week ago, I was a nobody, languishing on shore leave, with few achievements and fewer prospects. My only distinction was that I had trained myself in military arts of marksmanship and fighting, because the Navy no longer valued the skills of war.

  Oh, and apparently, I looked like a film actor, the one who always played the villain from the pre-Accord years: tall, well over six feet, fair-haired, blue eyed. I was what Navy called 'too oppressively male in appearance.'

  Now I was infamous: a traitor, a deserter, a murderer, and a thief, with a list of Navy Spirit code violations as long as your arm. I was wanted by the military. I was wanted by the Hong Kong Police, and by the Secret Service--and, of course, I was wanted by Octavia and her invasion force.

  Despite it all, I was also one of only three people to have actually been on board the alien vessel, the only one to have somehow drawn the infatuation of its leader, the only one, as far as I knew, to have been warned about the catastrophe about to unfold.

  And, as it turned out, I was the only one trying to prevent Octavia from invading the Earth and enslaving its people.

  Task one: stop Octavia herself.

  So, if I were ever going to pull the trigger, it should be now.

  The rifle's small light blinked, signaling its readiness.

  Now or never, Burns, I told myself. Now or never.

  I breathed out slowly and centered the crosshairs on Octavia's ear.

  I had made my decision.

  Before I squeezed the trigger, I whispered some final words into the rain, just in case I didn't survive the day.

  'I'm sorry,' I said. 'I say sorry to everyone I've disappointed. Sorry to you, Kresta, my mother. Sorry for wasting my life. Sorry for ending yours. Sorry to you, Dad. I never took the time to know you. And sorry to you, Katherine Le Seaux and Andrew Chen. I wish we'd had more time before the mission went so wrong.'

  I paused and drew a breath. I wasn't finished.

  'But I'm not sorry for what I did to all you admirals, captains and commissioners. Not sorry at all. In fact, I curse you. Curse you all. You are the ones who made us believe your lies--the lies that kept us down for hundreds of years. The lies that deceived us and prevented us from seeing the truth.'

  I know, because I was the most deceived of all.

  After such a tirade it was difficult to slow my breath and steady my heartbeat. I wasted even more seconds clearing my mind.

  Finally, I was ready.

  I breathed in. Breathed out. Repeated.

  Then, I caressed the weapon.

  And fired.

  Part 1: Shore Duty

  'THERE SHALL BE no borders between nations. The Accord Commission shall govern all.'

  Accord Of Nations Constitution

  1

  THREE DAYS EARLIER

  The night before the aliens arrived, I had a dream.

  I was standing on the quarterdeck of a large sailing ship, the really old kind we saw in paintings in the Accord museums.

  I stood in the cool breeze, shifting my weight from one foot to the other as the deck pitched and yawed. It was night and the surrounding sea was dark except for the tops of the white caps rolling towards ship's port side.

  Above me, gray and white sails rose high into the darkness, spread out along the nine yards of three towering masts.

  Before me, the deck stretched away towards the ship's plunging bow, and along the gunwales, cannons were ranged, held fast at their ports by thick rope tackles.

  The ship's timber groaned and creaked with each pitch and roll. The ropes either side of me answered with groans and creaks of their own.

  I sensed a presence to my left. I turned to face it slowly.

  Then I saw him.

  He was dressed in a blue naval coat, an impressive garment, with great brass buttons, white lapels and two braided epaulets. No stripes, so I couldn't tell his rank. But by the look of the coat, the rank was high, with two thick epaulettes. It might have been the kind of ceremonial coat worn by the navy officers in the evil pre-Accord era when Western powers oppressed the world.

  The strange man looked familiar. He was my height, with the same hair and face as me, but more weathered. His skin was not that of a twenty seven year old. It had taken some serious sun and wind, like an older version of myself.

  He leant on the taffrail, one elbow on the glistening timber, as if waiting for me to notice him.

  'Who are you?' I said, in my dream voice.

  I heard him reply in a strange accent.

  'You know,' he said. I barely heard it over all the creaking and yowling. The way he said it sounded like, 'Ye noo.'

  'You know,' he said again. 'Don't you?'

  'No,' I said. 'I don't.'

  He looked at me, one eyebrow raised.

  'Then, you're not ready,' he said. 'You look strong enough. You look like you can fight. Maybe you can command. But you're soft. It's obvious. You don't have the stomach, not for what's coming, not for what they'll do to you. You don't have the belief.'

  'What's coming?'

  'It's too late now,' he said. 'She's already here.'

  'Who?' I said. 'Who's already here?'

  He shook his head.

  And then, I heard the sound of wind chimes. They were playing nearby, somewhere behind me, totally out of place among the creaking ropes and cracking timber. The man in the British Navy coat raised his eyebrow even further.

  'Time's moving on, Lieutenant Burns.'

  2

  THE SHIP FADED away. The captain in the blue navy coat disappeared. The wind chimes rang on. I reached out from under the covers, found my handheld, and switched them off. Then, I rolled out of the bunk, rolled up the blinds and began my morning exercises while the cold light streamed in to the small cabin.

  It was 6:00 a.m. on December 29, 249 AONE, the Accord Of Nations Era, and it was going to be a
big day.

  I followed my usual exercise routine, the one for mornings when I wasn't going to either the base gym or to the base combat simulator, or to one of the Navy Spirit training courses, or off the base to the special martial arts courses I took with a civilian named Diaz.

  Fifty pushups on my knuckles. Fifty sit ups with twists to left and right. Twenty pull ups hanging from the metal bar that ran across the cabin ceiling, which wasn't strictly allowed by Navy Spirit.

  No, it wasn't a real work out, but it was enough to get my heart pumping and my muscles throbbing--not that I needed any more excitement. Today, as I said, was going to be a big day.

  Then, I grabbed my towel, soap and razor and hit the showers. I had to be nice and clean for when I met Captain Paine.

  I toweled off, came back to the cabin and dressed in my blue NWU, the Navy Working Uniform. Name patch for Burns on my right side, lieutenants stripes on the collar, the letters of AONN and AONT USA over my left pocket. The Accord of Nations Navy. Accord Of Nations Territory, USA.

  The only letters not on the uniform were AONS Harmony, which meant Accord Of Nations Ship Harmony, the base where I'd been on shore duty for two long years.

  I checked my watch. I was still early. The meeting with Captain Paine wasn't till 8:00. In the meantime, I had to attend the morning pledge and anthem recital, just like every other sailor and officer on the base.

  So, I switched on the radio. It was tuned to the local station. The female news reader said police had caught the vandals who defaced the Accord rainbow sculpture in the nearby town of Dworkin. Meanwhile, preparations were well underway for Accord Establishment Day Celebrations. This year, the announcer said, it was the turn of AONT China to host the ceremony in the southern coastal sub-territory of Hong Kong. Today's weather here in AON sub-territory California, cold and clear, as usual.

  I stood up, paced around the room. I hadn't been this on edge since the same time last year. Back then, I'd gone to Captain Paine's office hoping for but not really expecting anything good to come out of it. And I had been right. I had saluted and left that office and gone straight back to the training courses, all three hundred and sixty-five days of them.

  But this year felt different. Something was in the air. Call it intuition, a feeling I that something was going to happen. There were other signs too. The dream, for instance. The one about the sailing ship and the Captain in the PEA Navy great-coat.

  I checked my watch. I was still early, but decided I'd get out of the cabin anyway. I checked myself in the small mirror beside the bunk. My uniform was new and pressed, my face shaved and clean. Hair combed and neat. All Navy patches correctly placed and even.

  Lieutenant Alexander Burns was ready.

  Almost.

  There was one last thing to fix. I dropped the small grin. If there was one thing Captain Paine hated, it was male personnel who smiled. A male smile signaled male entitlement, which was one of the worst things in the Navy. It was one of the worst things in the Accord too. A male smile was a direct link to the pre-Accord days centuries ago when the patriarchal system tyrannized the world. Every male in the Accord bore the shame. It was every male's duty to eradicate it, like they eradicate pests.

  So, I forced the smile away and replaced it with the slack face of the dedicated male sailor. Humorless, non-threatening, resigned to whatever the Navy ordered.

  But behind it, I was still hoping.

  Today might be the day I'd finally be ordered to my first mission at sea.

  3

  JUST AS THE radio predicted, it was a typical morning for AONT USA, sub-territory California. Cold and clear, without even a hint of breeze. I looked at the sky as I walked. It was an unblemished light blue, as always.

  I walked past the Accord Of Nations flagpole. At its top, a hundred feet above, the oversized flag was held in position by a rod, so that it that flew proudly, breeze or no breeze. It was a Navy requirement that the full face of the flag be visible at all times from all parts of the base. So, the symbols of a dove perched on a rainbow on a brown background always stood proud.

  I reached the parade ground with a couple of minutes to spare. Ten thousand sailors, all dressed in blue Navy NWU were gathered, chattering in loose rows, waiting for the ceremony to begin. I saw Lieutenant Strick near the back and went and stood beside him.

  'T.E.D., Strick.'

  'T.E.D., Burns,' Strick said, as I fell in beside him.

  T.E.D. was the standard Accord greeting.

  'So, who was the enemy this morning?' Strick said, smiling. 'Rogue nations, meat eaters or patriarchal states that reject the Accord values?'

  I'd known Strick (preferred pronoun 'He') since I'd been assigned to AONS Harmony two years ago. We'd done several Navy Spirit courses together. Strick was always a joker, even after two high profile missions and two promotions.

  Strick's first mission was aboard AONS Gender Spectrum on a tour of AONT Asia. The second was on AONS Jenner to AONT Russia. There were patches on his NWU representing distinguished service on each of the missions. Rumor was he had been recommended for the Navy Cross for a speech he gave in AONT China about the oppressive nature of capitalism.

  But for the moment, Strick was on shore duty too.

  'I was scheduled to fight climate change deniers,' I said, 'but I cancelled because of a meeting with Captain Paine.'

  'Climate change deniers,' Strick said. 'Are there any left? I guess it's possible there might be climate changer deniers somewhere--AONT Australia, maybe. Were they violent?'

  Strick was referring to my usual morning routine of weapons combat training in the base simulator.

  'Depends what level of danger you choose,' I said. 'If you want they can be harmless rioters in an open space, or you can crank it up and fight them with weapons in a city at night.'

  Stick shook his head. 'You still think all that stuff will do you any good, Burns? I mean, what's the actual likelihood of any action these days?'

  Throughout his career, Strick had done no training involving fighting at all. It certainly hadn't done his career any harm. He'd been promoted as fast as the Navy Spirit Code permitted. But I had my own ideas about what skills a Navy person should have. In my view, you had to be both competent and dangerous, even if you never used your skills. Not using them gave you character; knowing that you could use them gave you power.

  But I never dared to say this to any one.

  'If you want my advice,' said Strick, 'stop trying to be an old Navy guy and start being a new Navy guy. Combat training and battle training are from the days when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth. These days we win the war of minds, Burns, not territory. Take it from me. You'll never get anywhere if you if train for actual sea battles, old pal, unless you're planning on fighting a war of your own.'

  'I know,' I said. 'I know. But there are still worthwhile skills to learn.'

  'Like what?'

  'Like seamanship, like Naval history. It's the Navy after all, not a civilian department.'

  'You wanna get on a mission, don't you?' Strick said.

  At the front of the massed group of sailors was a raised platform with a podium and a microphone. An AON flag flew beside it. No loud speakers were necessary because we would all listen to the speaker and the anthem through our handheld headphones.

  Behind the platform were the docks at which three battleships were tied up: AONS Tolerance, AONS Equality, and AONS Diversity. They languished at their moorings, like old giants. None of them had been to sea for decades, not even on goodwill missions. Peace had reigned across the world for two hundred years, thanks to the Accord, so there was no need the Navy to be an actual fighting force.

  And now, the old battleships were deemed too aggressive to be seen by civilians. So, they'd been ordered to shore duty too, and their guns had been sealed against the weather with rainbow colored tampions.

  'Heads up,' said Strick.

  At the front of the crowd, a tall woman in NWUs walked purposefully to the podium, and yelled out, 'Atten-shun!' Everyone snapped their feet together and placed their hands over their hearts. The mass of sailors was now organized into tight rows.