Read War of Alien Aggression 1 Hardway for Free Online Page B

If you spread your doubt among this crew, then you will cut their chances of survival in half. Maybe more. They believe in this fight and you're not going to take that away from them, Mr. Devlin. You're not going to share your doubts. You're not going to do that because you care about your people. It's one of the things I like about you."  
    Ram quickly decided what Cozen really liked about him was how he was to manipulate because he cared about his people.  
    Harry Cozen looked out into space with his eyes focused to infinity. He said, "Don't disappoint me, Mr. Devlin. Get over the bad taste of what we have to do because in a few minutes, I expect you to do it." 
    *****
    In the reactor section's cramped control room Ram desperately tried to find some other way off that rock. He calculated the strength of the reactor chamber walls and whether or not they'd withstand the strain if focused explosive charges were used to send the explosion inward at a tiny pile of fissionable material. There was a chance he could use the pressure to create the x-rays needed for the secondary reaction. There was a much better chance that it would simply explode.
    Ram heard the double-beep of another suit being added to his line of sight comms channel when Mickey Wells came into the reactor room. She stood against the bulkhead. Then, she leaned back against it and let herself slide down it just like she used to slide down the wall of her little box apartment when she got home from doing a 'job'. She'd slide all the way down until she was sitting on the floor and stay like that for a long time.
    "Looks like you did okay." She said, "You always were a fast learner."
    He thought he knew Mickey, but when he looked at her face through the helmet, Ram couldn't hold in the disdainful exhalation. It said more than he'd wanted to. If he was right about Cozen, then did she help him do it? Did she help Cozen when he reached out and killed Mohegan? Did Mickey help him fake the attack on Gold Coast that marooned them here on Moriah the same way? And if she was part of Cozen's lies, then why? Why for god's sake? Why start a war?  
    "Did he do it, Mickey?"
    "Do what?"
    "Did he kill ten miners? Did he sabotage Mohegan and then Gold Coast and make it look like both junks were attacked?" 
    "I don't know what you're talking about."
    "C'mon Mickey, cut the crap. It's no coincidence what we found here. He planned this. The ETs could have just shot us. Why bother with cracking our systems to get the soft kill? No. Harry Cozen made that happen. He's using us. He's using us to start a war , Mickey. He's lying to us. He brought us here to do this. To attack that ship. He's the one who killed Mohegan's crew, not the ETs. He planned all this to maroon us here and get us to attack that ship." 
    "That's ridiculous," she said. "Why the hell would he do that?"
    " I don't goddamn know!" 
    She asked it softly, but it was menacing. "Have you told anyone else about your theory?"
    "The only reason nobody else is thinking it yet is they refuse to believe anyone would actually do what he did. But I believe it. I have some idea what he's capable of, Mickey. Is it true? Did you know when he did it? Did you help him?" 
    "If you don't know the answer to that, then don't insult me with the question." The silence hung there in the vacuum until Mickey banged the back of her helmet against the bulkhead. She did it a few times and said, "Things don't always go the way he plans." Hearing that made the deck fall out from under Ram's feet. No matter how strongly you suspect something awful, finding out it's true is far worse. Before that, there was an infinitesimal chance you were wrong – a chance that all your fears were imagined. Now, you know it's true and you can't pretend it's not. Now, you've got to face it.
    "Have you told anyone else?" she asked Ram again.
    "Screw you, Mickey." His righteous anger made it easy to say.
    "Have you told anyone?" 
    "Did Harry Cozen send you in here