Scavenger Falters (The SkyRyders Book 2)

by Liza O'Connor

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I know. But you should try eating something.”

  “I’ll eat something after you guys are gone.”

  “We’ll be real quiet, so you can go back to sleep.”

  “Talk all you want. I won’t get back to sleep without you beside me. You’re very comforting.”

  Alisha leaned forward and kissed him on his forehead. “You’ve comforted me frequently enough, Jack, it’s time I pull my weight.”

  When she joined Benjamin at the table, he eyed Jack with alarm. “He’s not mad at me is he?”

  “No,” Alisha replied.

  “I was told he was very protective of you.”

  “Is that all I’m known for, being Colonel Sparkes’ girlfriend?”

  “No! There’s lots of stories about you going around.”

  “I know I’ll regret this, but what are they saying about me?”

  “That you’re the daughter of General Kane, the best flyer the Ryders ever had, but you’re a hundred times better. The reason you made colonel after two days in the Corps is because you’ve really been in secret training all your life, going from place to place, disguised as a debutante one month, and a scavenger the next. And like any powerful weapon, they kept you a secret until MAC decided you were needed, which is why you only showed up one day before the Ridge Battle.”

  Alisha was both pleased and stunned. This was definitely more flattering that just being the colonel’s girlfriend. “This is really what they say about me?”

  “And more! They say you’ve got contacts into the underworld and know everything about the criminal mind. They say that a traitor inside our own ranks tried to assassinate you the very first day, but you flew into the wind farm to prevent him from taking you out with a laser rifle. And this traitor remains buried in the brig even today as the general has him tortured on a daily basis to reveal who hired him.”

  “Good God!” Alisha exclaimed. She never realized how bits of truth could get twisted into utter nonsense.

  “They also say you can make yourself invisible to the enemy and literally disappear at will. You flew a surveillance mission thirty feet above a strongly armed guard line at the Ridge taking surveillance shots, but they couldn’t see you. During the Broadtown battle, they said you vanished in a cloud of smoke and reappeared five miles away with no catcher flying like an angel across the field of launchers. And none of the enemy saw you as you tossed blasters at their feet. And then just for fun you threw the last set of blasters in the water to kill all the meat-eaters so you could enjoy a refreshing swim.”

  Alisha noticed Jack had turned and was watching them. “Jack, are you listening to this?” Alisha demanded.

  “Why do you think I call you Wonder Woman?” He looked at the clock. “And as interesting as these stories are, I happen to know there are about a thousand of them, so unless you want to add Wonder Woman meets Godzilla to the list, you had better get a move on.”

  As Benjamin rushed in the bathroom with his clothes, Alisha went to Jack and took his hand in hers. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

  He raised her hand to his lips for a second. “I hurt, but I’ll be okay. Having a friend definitely helps.”

  She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight. “I love you, Jack.”

  Chapter 23

  By the time Logan’s second hour ran out and the wind shut off, he had exhausted himself beyond responding to the anger within him. He had been unsuccessful in purging his rage, but at least he had channeled it into something productive. His air control was a thousand times better than last night. He only hoped Alisha would agree with that assessment when she observed their flying this morning. The sooner he moved to the East Coast, the better this would be for everyone.

  He knew his anger was irrational. He had told her to get over him. He just hadn’t expected her to do it so quickly. He knew he would never get over her, and it hurt that she could set him aside with such ease.

  As he stepped out of the tunnel, he came face to face with Captain Tucker already suited and waiting to begin his hour of training.

  “Colonel Logan,” Tucker said, his expression clearly worried. “One of my squad seems to be missing, and when I mentioned it to Gunny this morning, he suggested I see you.”

  “Concerned about the ‘no dog’ speech from Colonel Kane and the general last night?” Logan studied the captain’s body gestures and facial expressions. He still wasn’t seeing the signs that DC had betrayed. To all appearances, Tucker seemed so damned genuine.

  “Truthfully, it does have me concerned. Especially when the colonel said she’d hold the captains responsible for any future occurrences of abuse.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t be so certain that she’s only holding captains responsible for future occurrences, Tucker. I think there may be an accounting for past abuses as well.”

  “That’s exactly my concern. I’ve got a missing squad member, real sweet kid, joined the Corps the same day as the Ridge battle. This kid is thin and small, and I knew right away that some of the guys in my squad were going to ride him hard. So I told him to stay away from them. I put his bunk on the inside wall so they’d have to get pass me before they got to him. Of course they immediately start this shit about him being my girlfriend.”

  Logan shook his head. “You’re the captain. It’s your responsibility to maintain control of your squad.”

  “Truthfully, sir, I’ve never had control. I was a sergeant until the Ridge battle. When the general field-promoted me to captain, he didn’t give me First Squad to command. Instead, he gives me the bunch of assholes that Colonel Sparkes had thrown off the training line and demoted.”

  Logan understood the captain’s problem. The general had been focused far more on punishing Jason and the others than promoting Tucker.

  Tucker ran his hand through his hair. “I can’t control my squad. Jason has promised them that my field-promotion won’t stand, and by next week he’ll be back in charge. And to be honest, he’s probably right, because by all measures I have completely failed as a Captain, including losing a two-day-old recruit.”

  “Losing your recruit is not what’s going to bury you, Captain,” Logan assured him. “It’s what happened to him while he was still in your care that you need to worry about.”

  Logan was surprised to see Tucker’s face wash with relief. “Then he’s all right?”

  “He’s amazingly resilient.”

  Tucker sighed with relief. “Thank God. I was scared to death they had gotten rid of him.”

  “Then you know who did it?”

  “Yeah.” Tucker provided their names.

  “Why didn’t you report this?”

  “Because it wouldn’t undo what had already happened, and I was pretty sure Jason would keep his word.”

  “That he’d not do it again?” Logan asked with clear disgust.

  “Jason? No.” Tucker laughed bitterly. “He promised to kill me in the next battle if I said one word. He threatened the same if I allowed Ben anywhere near a medic.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  “Of course I can’t. Probably fifteen people heard him say it, but they’ll get amnesia if you call them in. Nobody crosses Jason. Even the colonels here give him a wide berth. The second they try to interfere, or moderate his behavior in the slightest, Jason complains to the general that his command is being undermined and it is interfering with his ability to discipline his crew.”

  Logan frowned. He was all too familiar with those complaints. “Jason and DC were friends, weren’t they?”

  “More than friends. They both came out of Fort Brags together. There used to be one more, Lyle Weeks, but he was shot in his sleep by a new cadet that he had made his personal dog. That poor kid—they were taking bets on when he was going to off himself. Took everyone by surprise when he offed Lyle instead. Put a little scare into Jason for about six months, but then he resumed his old behavior.”

  Logan remembered the in
cident. The cadet had been convicted of murder and was serving a life sentence in prison.

  “Well, it’s time to put a stop to this. Your career as a captain has been a poor performance to date, Tucker, but a lot of that was due to factors out of your control. Now you have the opportunity to turn matters around and do what needs to be done, or you can cower like a dog and wait for Jason to take back his position as captain.”

  “This will probably get me killed,” Tucker said.

  “That may happen the first time Colonel Kane sets eyes on you. So, would you rather die honorably or as a coward hiding this bastard’s secret?”

  “I’ll file the report. I only wished it was going to result in something other than my and Ben’s early demise.”

  “Don’t worry about Ben. He’s being watched over. You just stay focused on what’s right,” Logan assured him.

  ***

  Logan found the general in the officers’ commons, cursing the coffeemaker. The moment he spotted Logan, the general asked if he knew how to operate the damned thing. “Jack always fixes my coffee…”

  He felt like telling Powell to call Jack and have him fix it, then. However, he needed the general’s attention, so he found the filters and coffee in the counter and set the coffee to brew. “I’ve got Captain Tucker waiting outside the door. He would like to file an abuse report on three of your Ryders for the assault on Private Abrams.”

  “Glad you found him. I was going to have Jack pull him in later on today, but you’re right. Let’s get this ugly business out of the way.”

  Logan went to the door and let Tucker in.

  “So, Logan says you are here to file a report on the assault of one of your crewmembers,” the general said.

  “Yes, sir.” Tucker stood erect and stiff with an expression of imminent death upon his face.

  “Then let’s start your report with why the hell it took you forty-eight hours to report it?” the general bellowed, so loudly that a glass of water on the table vibrated.

  “Because I was afraid, sir,” Tucker admitted.

  “Afraid! You’re a goddamn captain! You aren’t allowed to be afraid!”

  “I know, sir. I have failed to be a good captain—”

  “Good? You aren’t even piss-poor. You are the worst captain this Corps has ever seen!”

  “Yes, sir,” Tucker agreed. “I deserve to be stripped of my rank, sir.”

  “You deserve a hell of a lot worse than that,” the general replied and sat back down. “Jack—” He stopped, realizing Jack wasn’t around. He looked at Logan and then frowned, got up, and poured himself a cup of coffee.

  Powell was clearly pissed because his new pet colonel didn’t pour his coffee, but there was no way in hell Logan was going to take over Jack’s duties along with his own. He had more important things to do.

  “General, perhaps this would go a little faster if you just let the captain tell you what happened. We do need to be at the training site in an hour,” Logan suggested.

  Powell gave Logan a hard ‘don’t push it’ glare but then nodded at Tucker.

  “Private Abrams joined two days ago, sir, same day as the Broadtown battle. Because he wasn’t weapon-certified, he had to sit the battle out. He wanted to fight, sir, but the regs forbid it.”

  “Given the shooting I saw yesterday, it’s a good reg. He would probably have shot a fellow Ryder,” the general grumbled.

  “Certain members of my squad had already begun addressing him as a female, sir. The fact that he didn’t fight just aggravated the situation. I had been watching out for him as best I could, but after the Broadtown battle, I had to attend the captains’ debriefing, so I told him to lie low and stay clear of the rest of the squad. Unfortunately, he wanted to be a part of the victory celebrations.” Tucker paused, looking as if his memories sickened him.

  Powell just stared at his coffee. “Go on,” he said.

  “When I was released from the debriefing, I tried to locate him. The trouble was nobody wanted to tell me where he was. I finally tried a new technique and asked where to find my squad.”

  Tucker appeared so upset Logan worried he might start crying.

  “By the time I got there, they had him stretched and pinned to the ground. Naked…and they were assaulting him with a broom handle. There was so much blood, I was certain he was dead.

  “I charged the one using the broom and knocked him down. My squad turned on me and said they’d…” He paused before continuing. “Someone in the crowd called out that Colonel Sparkes was coming…so they released me and told me to get Abrams back to the compound and if I said anything or attempted to get him medical care, they’d kill me.”

  Tucker looked the general straight in his eyes. “And I’m ashamed to say, sir, I didn’t want to die for the useless gesture of reporting a crime that wouldn’t even be punished.”

  Powell glared at him. “Since when do I not punish crimes? Have you forgotten that Ryder last year I sent up on murder charges? Did you think I went easy on him?”

  “No, sir, I never thought you were soft on him.”

  What a difference a little piece of intel makes, Logan realized. The general thinks his hard response toward the cadet who killed Lyle is proof that he provided fair justice and protection, when in fact it proved just the opposite.

  Powell sighed. “Well, let’s have the names of the men who did this?”

  “Jason Re, Rock Cannon, and Carl Hardiman.” Tucker’s expression was stoic and resolved, but with no hope for justice.

  “Jason Re?” the general said in clear disbelief. “You’d better have proof of that claim, soldier, because I find it hard to believe.”

  “Yes, sir.” Tucker sighed and shifted his focus to the wall behind the general.

  “Are you sure you want to go down this path? I’ll give you a chance to withdraw this report now…”

  Powell’s offer had to tempt the boy to take it back, but after a pause, he breathed in, stiffened his posture, and replied the report was true as given.

  General Powell wasn’t going to stop his coercion, so Logan stepped in. “That’s sufficient for now, Tucker. You’re dismissed.”

  Tucker escaped the room before the general could voice his objection. So he turned his wrath upon the colonel. “Goddamn it, Logan. That boy was going to retract that report until you interfered.”

  “I have absolute faith that you could have badgered and bullied him into retracting his report,” Logan replied.

  “I was not badgering him. I was simply trying to get to the truth!” Powell bellowed.

  Logan yelled right back. “He told you what happened. The problem is that you don’t want the truth, because it will require you to punish three of your favorite Ryders.”

  “They’re my best Ryders, goddamn it, and no, I don’t want them charged with this assault. It’ll ruin their careers. I should have never put them under Tucker to begin with. He doesn’t have the balls to be a captain. And this is what comes of weak leaders! All I was trying to do was give those three a wake-up call after Jack had to pull them out of the first squad training line. I thought it would stick in their craws to have a lesser man captain them.”

  “Then you succeeded. You placed Captain Tucker in an impossible situation. He had no chance of leading his squad, nor of protecting Private Abrams, and your three goons had a free pass to do anything they wanted, knowing that Tucker would be there to take the fall as captain.”

  “They are not goons! They are good soldiers,” Powell protested. “They are well-disciplined, fighting machines. I can understand how this happened, now. They were supercharged with adrenaline after the battle and in comes that little pint-size who hadn’t even participated…”

  Just then, Jack walked into the room and went to the counter, got his cup and poured a cup of coffee.

  “Jack, tell Logan that Jason and his crew are the best damned soldiers we’ve got!” the general demanded.

  Jason turned and looked straight at Logan. “They’re
uncontrollable goons,” he said. “Are they the ones who did that to Abrams?”

  Logan nodded.

  Jack sighed and walked to the door. “Well so much for putting a stop to dogs.” He sighed and left the room.

  There was a moment of silence as both Logan and the general tried to make sense of what Jack had just said and done.

  If I didn’t hate him so much right now, I’d really like that guy. Logan sighed. “He’s right you know. If you don’t punish them, then you’ve proven to your troops that what you say and what you do aren’t the same.”

  “There is no proof!” Powell bellowed. “Just the word of a piss-poor captain…”

  “Come on! You not only believe they did it, you even found your own perverse justification as to why they did it,” Logan yelled.

  “They are my best three Ryders!” he reiterated. “Do you expect me to throw them away?”

  “I expect them to be punished, just as DC will be punished. If you don’t, you will have ceded control of this fort to a psychopath captain. I know! It happened to me, and let me tell you, the day when you finally see how easily manipulated you were, the day you have to face your Ryders and see how useless you had been in protecting them from harm, the truth will tear your guts out. Stop it now, General, before that truth gets any uglier.”

  Powell remained silent for several minutes. “It’s almost time for the training. I’ll mull over your advice, Logan, and let you know my decision at noon.”

  Chapter 24

  After an hour of target practice, Alisha was certain Benjamin no longer believed she had been secretly training in weaponry all those unaccounted years. No matter how hard she tried, she could not keep up with his progress. She was always one ring behind him. Yet, Anna seemed pleased, at least with Benjamin.

  She even honored him with a threat. “Now you stay focused in your shooting today, Private. My reputation is riding on your performance. You embarrass me, and I’ll have you shooting targets until your trigger finger drops off your hand.”

  Alisha was worried that he might actually believe her threat, but while he snapped to with a “Sir, yes, Sir”, she didn’t see any real fear in his face.