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Grace's phone began to ring, breaking the peaceful silence that had fallen over the kitchen of Site Twenty Six. She snatched her phone up from the table. "Oh for fucks sake." Grace slid her finger across the screen, accepting the call. "Parker, what do you want?" She demanded, turning her phone onto speaker.

"I want you all back at Hell's Gate at oh ten hundred to report your progress with the savages."

"Parker they're people-" Grace began, her voice harsh.

"Get a move on, I want you and your team here within the hour." Parker put the phone down.

Grace slammed her phone down on the table so hard that it was a surprise when the screen didn't shatter.

Ivory, Grace, Jake, Trudy and Norm stood clumped together at the edge of the Hell's Gate compound

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Ivory, Grace, Jake, Trudy and Norm stood clumped together at the edge of the Hell's Gate compound.

"Nice of you to stop by." Parker looked up from the makeshift golfing green that he had set up. "How's everything going out there? Are the blue monkeys packed up yet?" He swung his golf club and swore softly. "See I keep booking it, it's the bloody exopack, the low gravity and high air density-"

"You called us back here to report, do you want to hear it or not?" Jake snapped.

"Go ahead." Parker put another golf ball on his tee.

"Jake's making brilliant progress, years worth in just a few months. But we need more time." Grace said earnestly.

"That's not what I wanted to hear." Parker pulled an umbrella from his golf bag and snapped it open, shielding himself from the sheeting rain that had just begun to fall.

"Parker it's their ancestral home. They've lived there since before human history began, you can spare them a few more weeks." Grace's brown eyes were wild with the passion that she held for the Omaticaya.

"Ripping the forest apart is inevitable so does it really matter when it happens? I'm sorry Doctor Augustine but you're out of time."

Parker left them standing in the rain getting drenched.

Grace stood in silence, watching him walk away. He had never called her anything but her first name before and it had left an odd, empty sensation in her chest. It seemed as though the man that she had once loved was completely gone and there was nothing that she could do to change that.

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Dishonourable Discharge: Grace Augustine Where stories live. Discover now