Scavenger Vanishes (The SkyRyders Book 3)

by Liza O'Connor

  “Sir, per reg 6.98, I request transfer of the demerits to myself.”

  “Granted,” the general replied, and read off the next name.

  Stubbornly, Powell read off every single name on his list, and just as stubbornly, Alisha took on the demerits of every Ryder herself. By the end, she had acquired 15,132 demerits.

  The general glared down at her. “Fifteen thousand demerits drops you down to a buck private, Kane.”

  “There’s nothing dishonorable about being a private, sir,” she replied bravely. It was certainly better than standing there and allowing him to enact a mass injustice.

  “So be it,” Powell said, and glared at his men. “You may see Alisha Kane as some type of hero today because she protected you. However, what she protected you from was the truth. I’m ordering every one of you whose name I called to come in and review your performance on the videotapes. Any of you who feel, upon review of the tapes, that you rightly deserved those demerits may then instigate Reg 6.98 and take back your demerits from Private Kane.”

  After a few curt words to Jack, the general stormed from the room.

  Alisha knew she had been outmaneuvered. Powell had used her sacrifice to win his argument. She could tell by the shame on the Ryders’ faces that they were already coming around to believing the general had been right. They had screwed up.

  One after another, Ryders came up and thanked her for taking their demerits, but every one of them concluded she shouldn’t have done it. The general was right… The general was right…

  Alisha was so angry, both with Powell for being unreasonable and herself for being so easily used, that she stormed off to her quarters. However, an MP blocked her entry.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but the general was very clear that only officers are allowed beyond this point,” the MP explained.

  Alisha turned her face away so he wouldn’t see the tears welling in her eyes.

  A familiar, gentle hand rested on her neck. “She’s with me, soldier,” Jack said.

  The MP grimaced. “I’m sorry, sir, but the general strictly said that Colonel…er, Private Kane was not allowed in the officer’s quarters, whether she was escorted or not.”

  Jack took her to one side. “Alisha, don’t cry. Things are bad enough as they are,” he warned her. “You need to take this setback with a stiff upper lip.”

  “A setback? This isn’t a setback. He used me, Jack! I played right into his hands!”

  “You think he became a general on his charm and good looks? That’s his expertise, Alisha. He figures out who you are and how to push your buttons so you do his bidding. And today he did it so well, I didn’t even see it coming.”

  Colonel Dryer interrupted their talk. “Private Kane,” he called out as he walked up. “The general has assigned you to my squad. You’re to report to Captain Benson for quarters.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Dryer,” Jack yelled. “You know as well as I do that every one of those men will take back their demerits. So why are you getting involved in this?”

  Dryer gave him a steely glare. “Not that it’s any of your business, Jack, but the general isn’t allowing them to take back their demerits until they have viewed their video. Since it will take about an hour per Ryder, and the general has limited the hours of viewing availability to three a day, it could be a month before Private Kane is back in your bed. Hope you can hold out that long.”

  Jack pulled back his arm, ready to punch Dryer’s smirk right off his face, but Alisha intervened. “Jack, he wants you to hit him,” she warned, and gently pushed him further away from Dryer. “Please, it’s bad enough that I’ve gotten suckered in today. Don’t fall into this amateur’s hands.” She said the last sentence in a whisper, knowing that Dryer wouldn’t hesitate for a second to throw her in the brig for insubordination.

  Once she was certain Jack had calmed, she left in search of Captain Benson, finally locating him in the mess hall. She struggled to remember why his name sounded familiar. The second a Ryder pointed him out to her, she realized where she’d heard his name. Jersey had pointed him out as the worst chauvinist in the Corps.

  “Great!” Alisha muttered, and presented herself to the captain. “Private Kane, reporting for duty, sir.”

  The room became deadly quiet, waiting for his reply. Benson gave her a cold and steely stare-down. “Colonel Dryer says you may be in my squad for a while, Private. He instructed me to treat you exactly as I would any new recruit.”

  Even Alisha could feel the tenor of the room change. Captain Benson was in danger of having his body torn from limb to limb.

  “Given that a new recruit is to be treated equally to all other Ryders, I have no problem with that,” Alisha assured him.

  Benson shook his head. “You’re wrong, Private. New recruits should not be treated equally.”

  Alisha heard someone in the gathering crowd warn him to lay off.

  “Sorry, guys, but the rules changed two weeks ago when our finest colonel stood on this very table and declared that we should treat new recruits like the children of our family. Well in my family, the children were treated very well.” He smiled at Alisha. “So if you’ll follow me, Private Kane, I’ll show you to your quarters.”

  Alisha noticed that her bed had five blankets and two pillows, and there was even a rope curtain between her bed and the rest, in case she wanted privacy. She smiled gratefully. She could hear the high fives going on behind her.

  Once the camp was satisfied that Captain Benson intended to treat her fairly, Alisha took down the curtain and returned the blankets and extra pillow. She was concerned that Colonel Dryer would come down hard on Benson if he showed her such blatant favoritism.

  That turned out to be a wise move on her part, for the first night, just after she dressed for sleep, the colonel made a surprise inspection. Since Alisha had insisted on putting the room back to code, she wasn’t allocated a single inch more than the other Ryders. To her amazement, Colonel Dryer actually took out a measuring tape and proved this to himself.

  He took his time with his measurements as the entire squad stood at attention in front of their beds. Finally, he returned to the line and studied Alisha’s borrowed pajamas. Given the scowl on his face, he clearly disapproved of their feminine frilliness. Alisha wasn’t too crazy about them either, but since she hadn’t been allowed to retrieve her clothes from her quarters, she had greatly appreciated the loan of pajamas from Casey, the other female Ryder in the squad.

  He reached out and fingered the lace strap of the top. Alisha flinched at his touch.

  His look turned hard and cold. “The general forbid Jack to provide you solace.”

  “The clothes are not mine, sir,” Alisha replied.

  “Whose are they?” he asked, clearly not believing her.

  “Sir,” Casey barked. “I loaned Private Kane clothes, sir.”

  Colonel Dryer stepped forward and observed Casey for a moment. “Well, it appears you gave Private Kane your best sleepwear. Is that not so, Private Jones?”

  Admit nothing, Alisha prayed.

  “Sir, no, sir,” Casey replied. “These are much warmer, sir. I like them better, sir.”

  The colonel leaned in very close. “I don’t believe you, Private. So ask for your clothes back.”

  After a moment of hesitation, Casey barked a request to have her sleepwear returned.

  The bastard had been dying to humiliate Alisha since she’d made colonel.

  “At ease, all of you,” Colonel Dryer barked, and returned to Alisha. “Give the private back her property. Now, Kane.”

  He wanted her to beg, to blush, to show some hint of discomfort at being forced to strip down naked in front of her squad. Instead, she gave him her most defiant “I don’t give a shit” look. She pulled off the top, slipped off the bottoms, and neatly folded them before handing them to Casey. “Thanks.” She pretended to feel no discomfort or embarrassment while wearing nothing but her panties.

  Casey, on the other hand, lo
oked as if she were going to cry as she took the pajamas back. Alisha noticed that despite the colonel declaring at ease, the rest of her squad, all young men, had remained at attention, with their eyes diverted. She was impressed by their willpower. Whenever Jack took off his shirt, she couldn’t resist looking.

  “Does this excite you, Kane?” Colonel Dryer asked. “Your nipples are hard.”

  “Nothing here is exciting me, sir. It’s just cold.”

  His eyes narrowed, then he turned and left the quarters.

  Alisha wasted no time jumping into bed and pulling the covers up over her head. Tears welled in her eyes. Tomorrow she’d write Logan an email and tell him what the general was doing. Surely then he’d let her transfer under his command.

  If she survived ’til the morning. She’d heard the cadets’ rooms were like icehouses, but she’d never appreciated exactly how cold they were until now. In less than five minutes on the hard, cold mattress with a single light blanket, she began to shiver. She heard Benson ask her if she was all right, but she couldn’t stop the shivering long enough to reply.

  A few minutes later, she felt herself being wrapped in a cocoon of blankets and carried from the quarters. If she hadn’t recognized Benson’s voice among those carrying her, she would have thought some of DC’s buddies had chosen this time to take revenge.

  The wind cut through the blankets like ice needles. She could feel her body temperature falling with every second that passed. She tried to speak, to warn them that if they didn’t get her somewhere warm soon, she wasn’t going to make it.

  She gave up and closed her eyes. Her thoughts went to Logan. If only he had taken her with him.

  Chapter 2

  When Alisha woke, she thought she was in heaven. Everything was white. As she focused on the fluorescent lighting, she changed her mind.

  “Good, you’re awake,” Sandy said as she placed a thermometer in Alisha’s mouth. “That was a pretty stupid stunt you pulled last night.”

  Alisha stared in confusion as Sandy proceeded to give her a lecture on hypothermia. When the medic finally pulled the thermometer from Alisha’s mouth, she tried to sit up. “How did I get here, and what were you told happened to me?”

  Sandy gave her one of those “don’t even try to pull the wool over my eyes” looks. “You were brought in by several of your young men friends, who said that while giving them lap dances you had started shivering uncontrollably.”

  “Lap dances!”

  “Look,” Sandy said. “I don’t give a damn if you screw every man in this camp. In fact, it’s rather refreshing to hear of a female Ryder with a worse reputation than Jack’s. However, take some advice. It’s winter. If you want to do lap dances, don’t do them outside in the buff. You don’t have enough body fat to protect you from the cold.”

  Alisha was speechless. She was going to kill Benson.

  “Now, your captain is here to take you back to your quarters. I need this room in a half hour. Anything you wish to do before that is not my concern as long as you keep your activity limited to the exam table, and don’t play with the supplies.”

  The second Benson entered the room, Alisha hit him with a jar of cotton swabs. “You told the medic I was giving you a lap dance?”

  Benson rubbed his chest where the jar had struck. “It was all I could think of. Don’t throw anything else, and I’ll explain,” he promised.

  Alisha couldn’t imagine any explanation that would satisfy her, but she let him approach.

  “I knew you were going into hypothermia, but if Colonel Dryer were implicated, I’d be done for. The colonel would no doubt receive a reprimand for his part in it, but he’d still be my colonel. Except now he’d be a pissed-off colonel, and I’d be his rabbit. So I had to come up with something the medic would believe that in no way implicated the colonel, but would explain how you came to be wearing no clothes. Given your reputation, I said lap dances.”

  “What reputation?” Alisha demanded.

  “Well…” Benson smiled awkwardly. “You know…”

  “No,” Alisha replied. “Tell me.”

  “Well, first there was Colonel Logan, then you dropped Logan for Sparkes, which we all understood, then there was Ben, then there was you and Colonel Logan in the tunnel, before Sparkes found you. Then you and Logan right before he left, and then Tucker in tunnel this morning.”

  “You can stop now,” Alisha said. No wonder the medic had believed Alisha wanted to sleep with every man in the camp. Rumor had it that she had slept with every man in the camp. She sighed. “So now we add lap dances to the pile of BS.”

  “I didn’t see what harm it could do.”

  “No, you’re evidently right. My reputation is pretty well dragging the bottom. I must be the biggest joke in the Corps.” She looked up at the ceiling, trying not to cry.

  “No!” Benson assured her. “We know you’re something special. Normal conventions don’t apply to you, any more than normal aerodynamics or Corps regulations. You do your own thing and we just watch and marvel.”

  Alisha sighed. “So how many soldiers did I lap dance?” she asked, resigned to this new adventure.

  “Well, Toby, Carl, myself and Loco carried you over. But if we leave out Randy, everyone will start calling him a fag.”

  “Let’s not leave out Randy, then,” Alisha said, and slid off the exam table. She noticed Benson’s red face. She failed to see what the problem was. She was wearing a hospital gown.

  She went to the small closet and stopped, realizing she hadn’t arrived with any clothes, so it was very unlikely she was going to find any in the closet.

  “I brought you a flight suit,” Benson said, managing to find his voice again as he handed her a package. “It’s regulation gear, stuff we give the new recruits.”

  “Thanks,” Alisha said, ripping open the package. The suit was too large for her, but it was better than being naked. Noticing Benson still watched her, she turned him around so he faced the wall before she removed the medical gown.

  “May I call you Alisha?”

  “Well, since I gave you a lap dance, I think you should,” she said as she stepped into the flight suit.

  “About the lap dance story. There is one problem with it.”

  Just one problem, she thought. “What’s that?”

  “None of us have ever had a lap dance, so we don’t know exactly what we’re talking about.”

  Alisha shook her head. If he thought she was really going to give him a lap dance, then he was insane. “Well, on the next leave, come with me and I’ll introduce you to one of the best lap dancers in Capital,” she promised him.

  “Really?” Benson asked in happy surprise, but then frowned again. “What if anyone asks before then?”

  “Tell them a gentleman doesn’t talk about what goes on between him and a lady.”

  “That’ll work. Nobody’s ever gotten a word out of Tucker or Ben either. They just sit and smile.”

  Chapter 3

  The Midwest battle was complete and utter devastation for the Cartel. While Logan usually did not believe in total annihilation of the enemy, in this case he followed General Powell’s example. No enemy survived the wrath of the SkyRyders that night. No surrender was acknowledged or accepted. The Cartel would have no one but the dead to question later on about the Ryders’ techniques and battle attack.

  With only two casualties and seven minor injuries to his troop, two days later he arrived in Chicago and took command of the East Coast SkyRyders. While the initial reception from his officers was on the chilly side, it soon turned ice cold.

  The more familiar Logan became with the established East Coast officers, the harder the task of winning this war became. Clearly his colonels did not recognize his right to be their general. Having his every order questioned became a routine occurrence.

  If he could, he would have replaced them all, but first he needed to have colonels with whom to replace them, and MAC was selective about making colonels now. A full psych
test was required. Usually it was required before becoming a general as well, but in times of war, MAC valued expediency over process, and thus had not required Logan to take a new psych test. Since he had more than his share of problems to deal with just now and couldn’t afford the fatigue the test caused, he’d been fine with skipping it.

  Beyond the blatant disrespect of his officers, he had other problems. Equipment was missing, but he wasn’t yet certain if the theft was a past or current problem.

  Additionally, the troops blatantly ignored his order that the making of dogs was to stop. Since his warning to cease the practice, young cadets now wore dog collars on their necks—a clear message from his captains. Not only were they ignoring his order, but they made certain he knew it.

  He needed Alisha to work her magic on his troops and give them a conscience and a soul. Ben was a great flier, but the only squad he could inspire was the BDs. Originally, Logan had planned to split the BDs among the forts, but he feared they would all die of unexplained accidents if he didn’t keep them together and close at hand.

  Someone placed a cup of coffee on his desk, pulling him back to the present. His strategist, Colonel Marge Williams, sat down in the chair on the other side of his desk. She looked nothing like a strategist and every bit like a blonde bombshell: gorgeous full lips, sultry eyes, and a curvaceous body that promised much pleasure in bed.

  “I looked over the plans you used in your Midwest battles. They’re excellent. I see Jack Sparkes deserves his ranking as the top strategist.” She sighed. “But they aren’t going to fly on the East Coast.”

  “Why not?” Logan asked. “The Cartel’s modus operandi is exactly the same here as it is in the Midwest.”

  “Because the East Coast has its own way of fighting battles. The squads fly in by their captains’ seniority in service and ranking. We don’t have specialists.”

  Logan stared at her in amazement. This was his strategist? He tried to contain his growing anger and frustration.