Free Peace Army by Steven L. Hawk Page A

carrier sat, ready to go. Grant knew he was trying to get his head around the matter.
    “If you have any concerns, let me know now. I can go if I need to.”
    “Oh, heck no.” Mouse smiled and shook his head at the thought. “The last thing we need is you standing in front of the Leadership Council with something like this.”
    “I was hoping you’d say that, Mouse, because—” Grant paused, took a breath, and continued. “Eventually, everyone in the world is going to have to get used to the idea. I’d just as soon as you started getting used to it now.”
    “And what if the Council doesn’t agree? What then?”
    “Oh, that won’t happen.” Grant laughed and slapped Mouse on the shoulder. “Not with you leading the charge.”
    Mouse continued to gaze straight ahead through the cockpit glass. He was obviously unconvinced.
    “What about Titan?” Mouse didn’t need to remind Grant that the alien ship was due to land in two days.
    “Make it a quick trip and you won’t miss a second of the action,” Grant replied. He watched as Mouse took a deep breath, held it for a second, then released it slowly.
    “Get off my ladder,” Mouse ordered. He picked up his flight helmet and pulled it roughly onto his head. He punched a button on the console and the bubble that encased the cockpit began to descend. Grant moved back quickly to avoid being hit.
    “I’ll be back when I can,” Grant heard Mouse say right before the hard plastic shell closed fully.
    Grant began to climb down from the ladder, but stopped and tapped the shell. When he got Mouse’s attention, he gave him a thumbs-up sign. Mouse gave a brief flash of gold teeth and jerked his head as a sign to get away from the carrier. Grant descended quickly, pulled the rolling ladder away from the carrier, and watched as his second-in-command’s craft screamed down the runway.
    When the carrier was out of sight, Grant turned back to the entrance to the prison—his Pentagon. He needed to discuss this latest development with someone, and set off to find Avery.
    As he walked, he considered what he had learned in his brief, fifteen-minute discussion with Tane and Randalyn.
    “Un-fucking-believable,” he muttered after checking to be sure no one could hear. Over the past six years, he had become better at hiding the anger, belligerence, or aggression that others might hear in his voice or view in his mannerisms. It came in handy at times like these, when he found himself shocked anew at something this current version of Earth threw his way.
    Who could have predicted that we’d still be having a debate on gays in the military six hundred years later?
    Unfortunately, the debate in the current world didn’t end with the military. If what Tane and Randalyn told him was accurate, and he had no reason to doubt them, then being gay was against the law.
    Everywhere.
    Grant was firm believer in individual rights. Always had been. That belief bled over into his feelings on gay rights—not that they were called that now. When he mentioned the term “gay” to Randalyn and Tane, neither knew the term. It was apparently a lost word, one no longer used in today’s society, in any context.
    In his time, it was a known fact that being gay wasn’t a choice, as many had once believed. Science had proven that men and women were born with predetermined preferences hard-wired into their brains and beings. He didn’t understand the science—hadn’t needed to. It was just something that… was.
    Apparently that knowledge hadn’t mattered to the designers of today’s “Peaceful” society. Like most other expressions of individuality that were missing from present-day Earth, it had been deemed “erasable” from society. Something to be suppressed by the need to conform to a narrow set of accepted ideals and norms. According to Tane, anyone who expressed feelings or inclinations toward homosexuality was submitted for the same psychological re-training given to those who