Refract: The Reclaim Series, Book 3.5

by J. A. Scorch

  "Working on it," Matos replied.

  Larsen took a moment to stare into the control room. The reflective glass didn't allow him to see inside, but he gave Matos and Jarvis a quick nod anyway to tell them to hurry.

  The Zeal burst through the door below and flooded the tower. Their shrieks filled the limited space as limbs scraped over the concrete surface, sending stabs of sweat across Larsen's brow line.

  It didn't take the creatures long to work out where their target had gone as they started to climb out the shutters and seek him out. Larsen took action and fired down on the first Zeal moron to poke its headless body out of the open space. His close-range shots lit up the Zeal soldier and sent it tumbling down to the Martian soil below. He fired again as the next alien did the same thing.

  "Larsen, we found a portable comm. Jarvis is calling for an evac now. Just hang on. We'll be out of here soon."

  "Got it," Larsen said as he let out another burst at the alien swarm. His ammo box was starting to deplete. He only had two more on his suit, and the average Zeal was taking too many hits to deter.

  "Tell them to hurry," he yelled as he got to his feet and moved away from the side. The Zeal began to use another open shutter to find a way to the top. He spotted one over his shoulder from the opposite side. As the creature went to charge, he fired an inaccurate burst and clipped the alien enough to knock it off the edge. On the angled roof, they couldn't make themselves into the well-armored balls that gave them the advantage. Instead, they had to face Larsen with their exposed bodies.

  He reached for the spire's main point and used it to leverage himself into position as the Zeal approached from multiple angles. In the distance, he swore he could hear the roar of twin VTOL engines spooling up. If everything had gone to plan, an SAF Dragonette would soon be heading in their direction. His imagination was more hopeful than anything else. The support ship could pick them up and fire on the Zeal with its three autocannons. He just had to survive long enough to make it on board.

  "Come on, assholes," Larsen yelled as he fired his weapon with one arm. The recoil compensator within the LMG was working hard to allow him to shoot from the hip singlehandedly. When his ammo box depleted, he didn't have enough hands to reload.

  Larsen let the X556SAW fall from his grip and clank about his chest as he pulled out his sidearm and started firing at the closest Zeal soldier as it crawled toward him. Several of them were falling off the edge just to get a chance to kill him. Their bloodlust could not be swayed.

  When his pistol ran out of ammunition, Larsen had only one weapon left to utilize: his boot. With one kick at a time, he sent the crawling beasts back down over the edge. The thick metal of his battle armor did well against their less protected forms.

  One of the Zeal bypassed his defense enough to land its jagged claw into the leg of his suit. Its blade sank in enough to pierce the armor and puncture his bone. With every slither of energy he could muster, Larsen thrashed his limb over and over until the barb loosened and the alien fell backward and clear off the edge of the tower.

  He had no choice but to ignore the searing pain in his leg while the hole in his space suit gradually let out his recycled oxygen supply.

  With waning energy, Larsen kicked the next alien with his other foot as he heard the definite whine of a Dragonette in the distance.

  But it was still too far off, and his body was running out of steam. The pain in his other leg was beginning to take over his every thought.

  If the pilot didn't reach him in the next thirty seconds, he wouldn't make it.

  Chapter Eleven

  "Larsen," Matos called over the comm. "Don't move."

  Before Larsen had a chance to respond, rifle fire spat out and hit the aliens behind his back, knocking them off the side of the tower.

  "Move around to the back of the spire," Jarvis ordered. He and Matos were on the ground below shooting up to the Zeal. They continued to fire as they headed for the closest stairwell. They didn't let up as they blasted at the aliens while climbing the catwalk above one of the gates near the tower Larsen was clinging to.

  More than half of the creatures diverted their attention away from Larsen and charged away toward Jarvis and Matos. Using the slight height advantage of the catwalk, the two privates blasted down on the crawling aliens as they scrambled over one another to try and get to their targets.

  The Dragonette's hum grew louder as it arrived near the base at a low altitude. The pilot didn't waste time as the vessel swept in hard, its twin VTOL engines laboring to slow up its active approach and hover slightly above the height of the tower. Larsen was still kicking Zeal off with a single boot when the copilot directed the three autocannons poking out of the front of the bird to light up the aliens along the walkway.

  Larsen eased up a moment as he watched the invaders be torn to shreds in a shower of metal on metal. Purple blood coated the concrete path as the Zeal were reduced to a puddle of twisted iron and guts. The move prompted Jarvis and Matos to shift their fire to the last few stragglers trying to get at Larsen. They cleared the tower within thirty seconds as the last of them fell to the ground below.

  Larsen gave the pilots of the Dragonette a wave to say thanks. The pilot responded by expertly shifting the hovering bird toward him. The ship spun around and lowered its cargo ramp so Larsen could climb in. He scrambled his way inside with one bad leg and found the nearest seat his shaky arms would allow him to grasp. Within a minute, the Dragonette had lifted away from the tower and back down to the catwalk for Jarvis and Matos to climb on board.

  The three privates all stared at one another as the loading ramp sealed itself shut. Larsen tried to deal with the adrenaline pumping through his veins by taking in deep breaths of his fading tank air with his head pointing down at the floor of the ship. After a long enough time for him to refocus, he raised his head up to see the cargo bay had pressurized and was now full of breathable air.

  He pulled off his helmet in a hurry and glanced at the array of monitors that gave the occupants of the bird a visual of the world outside.

  Larsen stared in awe at the sight of the outpost still teaming with Zeal on its outer walls. The ones that had fallen from the tower were still alive and itched to get back inside.

  "Privates," the pilot called over the comm speakers. "Is there anyone else within Venom Point that needs evac?"

  "No one that's alive, sir," Larsen said.

  "Copy that."

  Larsen couldn't hear the pilots next words, but he knew the man would be calling in the situation up the chain. He hoped Command would act as swiftly as possible and take care of the new threat the Zeal were now capable of inflicting upon humanity. He got his answer a minute later when an SAF Snakefly tore past the Dragonette at a low angle and dropped half of its payload in a sweeping run on Venom Point.

  The base lit up on the array as the ASMs from the Snakefly's racks turned the reinforced compound into a collapsing heap of slag, taking out everything in its path. The Zeal on the ground would be no more.

  Larsen let his head fall back into the seat he had strapped himself into along a wall of the Dragonette. He closed his eyes as the day claimed him in the short trip back to Skyresh where Command would ask a million questions. The brass could bug him with every irrational thought they wanted to. He didn't care. The important thing was that he, Matos, and even Jarvis got out alive.

  Corporal Saxon was the unfortunate exception.

  Chapter Twelve

  When the pilot touched down at Skyresh and taxied inside the hanger bay, Larsen didn't want to leave the relative comfort of his seat. Matos and Jarvis had already gotten up as the ramp began to lower.

  "Are you coming?" Matos asked.

  Larsen nodded and pushed himself out of the chair back to reality. The pain in his leg stabbed back twice as hard the second any pressure was placed upon it, pulling him to his knees.

  "Jarvis," Matos called. "We need to help Larsen."

  Jarvis didn't argue as he came ba
ck and helped Larsen to his feet, acting as an aid for his wounded leg.

  "When did this happen?"

  "Probably when you two idiots came rushing out to pull the Zeal off me. You shouldn't have risked your asses like that."

  Jarvis laughed. "Just shut up and let us help you."

  Matos also smiled as she guided them along and safely out of the Dragonette. A nurse was waiting outside the ship as part of the standard protocol when an evac had been requested.

  "What happened to him?" the nurse asked. She was a bit older than the usual people Larsen had seen around Skyresh.

  Matos answered her. "The Zeal is what happened. We have a new threat facing us now."

  "Great," the nurse replied, sarcasm filtering her words. "And here I thought I was going to spend the last three months of my contract taking it easy. Come on, let's get him on a stretcher and down to Medical."

  Jarvis and Matos helped Larsen to a bed and proceeded to remove their helmets.

  "Much better," Larsen said soaking in the comfort of the bed as he stared back at the two soldiers. Sweat covered their brows.

  "I suppose you'll be off back to 1st," Larsen said to Jarvis.

  Jarvis gave him a half smirk as his eyes drifted around the hanger bay. "I suppose so." He leaned in closer to Larsen and said, "I'm sorry for what we did to your friend. I can't ever repay him or you for that, but I figure Matos' attempt to murder me never happened considering the circumstances of our day out there."

  Larsen turned to Matos. She heard every word. "What do you think? We start over? Forget this whole rivalry thing?"

  "I don't think we have a choice," she said. "The Zeal are back in town, begging for an ass kicking."

  The three privates smiled at each other. A few minutes later, Jarvis was whisked away by a couple of 1st Squad grunts. The two that came to collect him made a few remarks about 4th as usual. To Larsen's surprise, Jarvis defended the squad and told the two grunts never to say another bad word about them again.

  "I'll see you around," Jarvis called with a wave to Matos and Larsen.

  Matos huffed as she watched him leave. "What an asshole," she said.

  Larsen laughed as the nurse ran through some required data entry on her NavComm at their side. He stared up at Matos after a few moments of silence. "He is an asshole, but after today, things will be different. If the Zeal really are back, we won't have time to mess around with pointless feuds."

  "What about Miles, though? His beating goes by unchecked?"

  Larsen shook his head. "Let it go ... at least for now."

  "Fine," she said without too much resistance. "So what happens now, anyway?"

  A few minutes went by as Larsen left her question to hang in the air. The nurse gave him a quick shot of Morpha to ease his pain. She ran through the usual medical protocol when drugs were administered as fast as possible. Larsen barely took notice of the words coming from her mouth.

  Matos' question got answered a moment later when two officers came walking through a door attached to the hanger bay's control room. Larsen recognized the woman, but the man seemed out of place.

  "Private Larsen?"

  "Yes, ma'am?" he replied to Skyresh's commander, Colonel Malory Garland.

  "Quite a day you've had, I hear."

  "You can say that again, ma'am."

  The colonel nodded as she inspected his wound. "I see the Zeal weren't too friendly toward you either. Never mind. We need to talk to you and Private Matos. Private Jarvis will be interviewed at a later stage."

  Larsen was beginning to wonder if this meeting was about the Zeal or an internal investigation into Miles' beating. Two sets of eyes stared at him, demanding a response. It wasn't until Larsen's focus landed on the unknown man that he noticed the purple eyes of an officer with Zeal nanites running through his system.

  "I'll cut to the chase, Larsen," Garland said. "This is Major Bradley Porter of the SAF. He wants to know everything the three of you saw out there today at Venom Point."

  Porter stepped forward. "I'm sorry to do this to you, Private, but we will need to speak with you both while the nurse inspects your wound."

  "That's okay," Larsen said. There was no way he could deny the officers before him unless he wanted his career to end at that moment.

  "Thank you," Porter said.

  As the nurse wheeled Larsen along to Medical, the two officers and Matos walked beside his stretcher. Larsen couldn't help but stare up at Porter's purple eyes.

  The major glanced down at him before he had a chance to look away.

  "Never seen anyone with nanites before?" Porter asked.

  "No, sir. I heard there weren't many of you out there."

  "Relatively speaking, that's true. Despite having the capability to safely give more soldiers Zeal nanites, the program had to be cut off at roughly 10,000 for ridiculous political explanations I won’t get into. It's half the reason the SAF came to be."

  Larsen was starting to wonder how the major knew so much about everything until something clicked in his mind. "Wait a second; you're not one of the Porter brothers, are you?"

  Porter smiled out of the corner of his mouth.

  "Holy crap," Larsen said. "Sorry, sir. It's just I've heard a lot of crazy things about you and your brother, Teve Porter."

  "I'm sure it's all exaggerated, Private. Besides, that's not why I'm here."

  The stretcher arrived at Medical. The nurse wheeled Larsen in and got to work removing his armor without causing any additional damage to his leg.

  Porter kept him distracted throughout the process by asking him question after question about the Zeal he and Matos had encountered. Apparently, three other outposts had been hit at the same time. No one else survived those attacks, making Larsen, Matos, and Jarvis the experts on the new threat.

  Porter had been in the area one base over as part of a tour of the outer defense network and came to Skyresh as soon as the evac call crossed his feed. The former MAF pilot was considered one of the leading experts of the Zeal based on his service in the war.

  Larsen was in awe of the mere fact he was chatting to one of the Porter brothers. The two had been instrumental in pushing the aliens out of the solar system and were at the head of the planning for the pending assault on the Zeal home world. According to Porter, this new development was going to accelerate those plans and force the SAF to take the fight to the Zeal home world sooner than later.

  After a lengthy discussion, the nurse had finished her side of things and cleared the area.

  "Thank you for your time today, Privates," Porter said. "You've been more helpful than you could have ever imagined." The major stood to leave. "We best be on our way so the two of you can get some rest."

  "Sir," Larsen said as the two officers moved toward the exit.

  "Yes?"

  "I just need to know something: why do you think the Zeal would attack a bunch of outposts when they could have tried taking on one of our bigger bases?"

  A smile formed on the side of Porter's mouth. "They were experimenting. Testing out their new weapon before they hit us with the real army they've been building over the last year. That's why we need to hit them first where it counts." Porter's purple eyes wandered around the room, passing over the two soldiers as they hung to his every word. He focused on Larsen again. "Unfortunately, this means Mars will be subjected to more of these attacks until we can launch a fleet. There will be more losses to come. I can guarantee it." Porter tapped the frame of the door for a few silent seconds and said, "Take care, Privates."

  Larsen's mouth hung open as Porter and the officer left. He faced Matos as reality hit them both in the face. At that moment, they both knew that their day of hell was only the beginning of worse things to come.

  The Zeal were back.

  They would face the aliens again, either on Mars or during a headfirst assault on the Zeal home world.

  The next phase of the fight for humanity's survival was about to begin, and there was nothing they could do to
stop it.

  The story continues in Revive (Reclaim Series, Book Four)

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  AFTERWORD

  Thank you for taking the time to read Refract. I hope you enjoyed this novella set between book three and book four of the Reclaim series.

  If you liked reading this novella, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. This will help others discover my work and get my name out there.

  J.A. Scorch

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