Expedition (The Locus Series Book 2)

by Ralph Kern

  “Probably like shit.”

  “Bingo.” Mack tried to pick herself up before collapsing back to the deck.

  “Mack,” Jack said as he threaded an arm under hers. “We’re going to have to move, and fast. We’re probably not going to be able to be too delicate with you.”

  “Just do it,” Mack said. Her eyes widened as she looked over Jack’s shoulder. She fumbled a hand toward Laurie, trying to take the gun out of her grip. Laurie snatched her hand back instinctively. “What the fuck is he doing here?”

  She turned and saw who Mack was looking at. Grayson dropped onto his haunches in the cabin. “Him?”

  “He’s come to help,” Jack called over the din from outside. “We’ll have to explain later. Grayson, take her.”

  Laurie gave a tight nod as she moved to one side of Mack, placing an arm round her and trying to pull her up. Grayson twisted next to her and took her other side.

  “Get your fucking hands off me,” Mack snarled in rage and pain.

  “Lieutenant, not now,” Jack said. “Please.”

  She gave an animalistic growl, before acquiescing with a reluctant nod.

  Mack yelped as they started to pull her toward the cockpit. Jack turned to the bloodstained coats which covered body-sized lumps. Jack slipped them down, exposing Donovan and Doctor Tsang’s pale, waxy faces.

  “Jesus,” he murmured, shaking his head.

  “We have to bring them,” Laurie said as they squeezed into the cockpit. A pair of hands gently began pulling the pilot through the window, taking her off their hands.

  “We can’t,” Grayson grunted as he pushed on Mack’s legs.

  “No!” Laurie shouted. “We can’t leave them here.”

  Jack stood, wobbling as the helicopter hulk vibrated. “He’s right. If we could, we’d bring them, but they’ll slow us down and our priority has to be with the living.”

  Laurie felt a pain-filled cry of frustration escape her lips. She looked up as Mack disappeared through the window. She knelt next to the two bodies and brushed each of their foreheads. “I’m sorry.”

  She felt a tear trickle down her face.

  “Come on.” Jack gently pulled her onto her feet.

  Together they turned to the cockpit and Jack began pushing her up to get her over the lip. Grayson’s face appeared in the window. “The pilot is saying something about a flight recorder memory stick from that airliner? She reckons it could be important intel.”

  Laurie looked around and pointed at the bright orange case lying disregarded where it had fallen in the cabin. “There.”

  Jack flipped it open and took a second to look over it. “Grayson, you seen one of these before?”

  “Should be a slot with a solid-state memory stick in it,” he called back. “Yank it. It’ll contain the flight recorder data.”

  He saw the port and pulled the tiny storage device. He thrust it into his pocket. “Got it. Let’s go.”

  Together they thudded onto the steep incline of the mountainside. All around them creatures spiraled to the ground. The moment they touched down, they leapt back into the air, as if it the very ground was roasting hot.

  “Laurie, you and Grayson take Mack. We’ll make sure these things don’t try and get to close.”

  In a stumbling run, the six of them began scrambling down the mountainside.

  Chapter Thirty-Five – The Present

  They left the shadow of the swirling, shrieking swarm and arrived at the clearing where the helicopter sat, its blades spinning with a throbbing noise.

  “Get on board. Quickly.” Jack gestured up the fuselage toward the cabin door. The others stumbled forward toward escape.

  Jack turned to face the dark cloud, the edge of which pulsated a mile away steadily creeping toward them. They’d made good time, better than expected, sneaking in and arriving back to the helicopter just as night began to fall. The red of sunset washed over the lush landscape, giving the cloud a surreal glow.

  The vibrations of the ground had continued. If anything, they had increased in frequency. The mountain’s edge began to shimmer from the intensity.

  Without any more warning, black lava began to spill from the peak, trickling down the mountainside with alarming speed. The cloud above them sprang in reaction, spreading out from the mountain like an organic shockwave rippling out from the peak.

  ***

  Grayson stood next to Jack by the rear of the helicopter, looking in the same direction. It didn’t look like any of the flying creatures were bothered by the aircraft—in fact they were just plain ignoring them as the last few stragglers surged past. But whatever the hell that black stuff was, it was going to overrun their position in less than thirty minutes at the speed it was flowing.

  He heard the clunk of a rifle being made ready and glanced over at Jack.

  The Marine stood, his weapon pointed at Grayson’s face, his finger wrapped around the trigger. The look on Jack’s face one of steely determination and resolution.

  So, that’s how it is.

  “I thought you let me come on this mission a little too easily.” Grayson felt his lips twist into a sardonic smile. “So, you’re the attack dog for Slater and Kendricks? Or have you just been with Wakefield since the beginning?”

  “This is none of Wakefield’s business so don’t try with your smoke and mirrors.” Jack had the slightest of a catch to his voice, as if his throat was dry. “You’ve got two options. Walk away from the helicopter and never return to the fleet. Or...”

  “Or?” Grayson turned fully toward Jack, letting his hand dangle casually next to his pocket. He genuinely looked like Wakefield’s name was an irrelevance to him. There went that theory. But he didn’t dispute the Slater or Kendricks link.

  “I don’t want to do it,” Jack replied. “But I will if I have to.”

  “Or?” Grayson repeated. He looked at the man, trying to discern his intent and his resolve. At the moment, that resolve looked disturbingly... resolute.

  “Or I’ll shoot you.”

  “You’ll shoot me, will you?” Grayson snorted. “In cold blood?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll squeeze that trigger? Kill me? Watch my brains splatter over that there ground?”

  “Yes.” Jack’s voice had grown firmer again.

  So, this was the moment. He’d heard about the disabled Marine in action. Heard about how lethal he was. Bautista even shook when he’d told him about the battle on Atlantica.

  But a cold, ruthless killer? He doubted it.

  “You won’t do it.” Grayson tried to sound more certain than he felt right now.

  His hand had sneaked into his pocket and he closed his grip around the flare gun’s handle.

  “You’re a cold-blooded murdering bastard and I don’t have an ounce of sympathy for you—”

  “I’m a Captain in the US Army—” Grayson interjected. It was now or never. He finally had to come clean.

  “A traitorous murdering bastard, sir,” Jack spat the honorific. “And—”

  “Attached,” Grayson raised his voice over Jack’s. “To the CIA Special Activities Division—Special Operations Group.”

  Jack cocked his head, his rifle muzzle lowering a few degrees before he recouped himself. “Even if you are SAD/SOG, then that’s the old world. It doesn’t account for your actions here and now and what you did—”

  “Assigned to investigate one Admiral John Reynolds, retired,” Grayson pressed on.

  The muzzle of Jack’s rifle lowered slightly again. “Bullshit!” he snapped.

  Grayson glanced at the mountain. The black lava had spilled halfway down the mountain. He locked his eyes on Jack’s. “And, as I later learned, Conrad Wakefield.”

  “You’re lying about the admiral. Wakefield I can believe but... not the admiral.” Grayson saw a look of uncertainty flash in Jack’s eyes. A crack in his armor. A crack he could exploit. He released his grip on the flare gun and casually drew his hand out his pocket as if it had never
been there.

  He held up his hand, his palm open, demonstrating he wasn’t moving as a threat, then reached down into the front of his pants, ignoring the flash of confusion on Jack’s face. He pulled out the folded sheaf of papers secreted down there and extracted the printout of an image. “You tell me. Is this bullshit?”

  Grayson held it up to Jack. On it was the picture he had taken of the meeting at the Carlton Club. Wakefield presiding over a meeting of a dozen men and women. Sitting prominently near the billionaire—John Reynolds.

  Jack stepped forward, holding his weapon in one hand still pointed at Grayson, and pulled the paper from Grayson’s grip. His eyes darted to the page.

  “Why we’re here, how we’re here, in this time, Jack. He’s in on this. He always has been.”

  “This could be fake?” Jack murmured in disbelief. “You could have faked this.”

  “On what? You think the computers on the Titan have Photoshop on them? They barely have Windows. And why? Why would I do that?” Grayson said, letting his voice take on an earnest urgency.

  “I don’t fucking know!” Jack shouted with sudden anger. “You tell me.”

  “I’m going to need you to trust me, Jack.” Grayson slowly reached into his pocket again and pulled out the flare gun with his fingertips, making it clear he wasn’t doing it as a threat. Jack gritted his teeth, drawing the rifle back fully into his shoulder. Grayson slowly knelt and placed it on the floor. “I took that from the Airbus, just in case. I could’ve used it on you at any point.”

  “Okay. Speak,” Jack growled. “But the second I think you’re lying...”

  Grayson glanced at the mountain. The darkness pouring down it in black rivulets. It must have reached the crashed Seahawk’s altitude. At most they had twenty-five minutes before it reached them. Whatever the hell it was.

  Personally, Grayson didn’t particularly want to be around to find out.

  He had to talk fast. “This all started after I returned from the mission to take out Al Bashari...”

  ***

  Laurie gently massaged Mack’s shoulder, darting the occasional look outside. What was keeping them? They’d disappeared out of view around the back of the helicopter.

  Minutes ticked by then, finally, Grayson sprang into view, climbing into the cabin. A pale-looking Jack stepped up behind him. The two men took their seats in the interior.

  “Are you okay?” Laurie reached and gripped Jack’s hand. He recoiled slightly before relaxing and letting her. He’d never done that before. Never seemed scared of her touch. Did she just stink from her long days trapped on the mountain? No, he wasn’t that shallow. “Jack?”

  “We have to move.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he gave a swallow. “Now.”

  The helicopter rocked as it lifted, the ground receding away beneath them.

  Laurie shook her head at Jack’s strange attitude, disregarding it. For the moment. She pointed out the window. “We have to know what that is.”

  Jack nodded, grabbed a pair of binoculars from the storage locker, and looked through the window. Laurie’s saw a muscle tense in his cheek as he gritted his teeth. He proffered the binoculars at her. “Take a look.”

  The black wave sprang into view. From this distance, the bulk seemed to be an amorphous churning mass, but as she swept her view to the leading edge she gave a gasp.

  Beneath them was a roiling horde of giant insectile creatures, spreading across the vista. From what she could see, they were devouring the forest as they went. They seemed to be the same type as the creatures they had disturbed, but these were even more massive. Maybe they were adults, grounded by their sheer bulk.

  She cocked her head, her analytical side at work. They couldn’t be true insects as they knew them—their means of respiration limited the size they could grow to. More likely these creatures were a strange new life form which had evolved in the last ten million years.

  She looked back at the mountain. On the few patches now not covered in darkness, she saw it had been stripped clean of vegetation, leaving nothing but rock and soil.

  She squeezed her eyes closed. Perry. Doctor Tsang. Had they just been devoured? Had they left their corpses to be eaten?

  And then a terrible realization hit her. This was why the downed airliner had no one in it. All those people and the plane’s carcass picked clean of any material which could be digested. That was what had happened to them. Why they had disappeared.

  The mass continued flowing out. Instead of lava, this mountain was erupting a voracious swarm. Whether these creatures had tunneled out a mountain, or somehow created it, it dawned on Laurie what she was looking at. A hive. A vast bloody hive.

  “We may have a very big problem here.”

  “So I see,” Jack replied. “You think it might get as far as us? As the fleet.”

  “I don’t know, Jack.” Laurie lowered the binoculars. The mountain continued spilling the creatures. “But it doesn’t look like they’re stopping coming.”

  The helicopter yawed around, lowered its nose, and sped home without regards for fuel efficiency. They needed to get back. And fast.

  Chapter Thirty-Six – The Present

  Night had fully fallen as Slater walked onto the flight deck atop Atlantica’s bow. She saw Kendricks, talking to Doctor Emodi, the admiral with them. The medical team surrounded them with stretchers at the ready. The captain turned as she approached him.

  “ETA is five minutes, Heather.” Kendricks reached up and squeezed her arm briefly.

  She nodded, clasping her hands behind her back to stop a nervous worrying on her fingernail. Her stomach still churned at the thought of what she’d asked, no ordered, Jack to do. But not as much as the thought of her officers hurt and dead.

  The news about Perry had left a gaping, sickening hole in her stomach. Her friend, confidant, and right hand was gone. Her XO.

  Atlantica had the best medical facilities in the fleet, and that meant the rescue helo was coming in here. Wakefield’s strange insistence it go straight back to the Osiris had been overruled in no uncertain terms.

  Doctor Emodi began pacing back and forth on the deck, speaking away on his radio in his singsong voice—talking to someone on the helicopter, getting as much advanced information on Mack’s condition as he could.

  Finally, he gave the radio back to a crewman and approached Kendricks and Slater. “Fortunately, I do not believe the Lieutenant McNamara will be a critical case...”

  “But?” Slater raised her eyebrow. A carefully affected expression for when she was asking a question and wanted an answer.

  “But I am not going to give a pre-diagnosis,” Doctor Emodi said. “I want her down in the infirmary stat.”

  “You do what you need to do, Doctor.” Kendricks gripped the small man’s shoulder for a second. “And anything you need. Anything at all.”

  The thumping noise of a helicopter’s blades washed across the bay, rapidly growing in tempo. Within moments, the Airbus was hovering above them before gently settling onto the pad.

  The rotors swung to a halt and the door slid open. The medics rushed to the woman being gently led out, clutching her arm to her chest. They laid her down on the stretcher and began wheeling her across the flight deck.

  Slater jogged to the stretcher and matched pace alongside.

  “Ma’am,” Mack croaked. “I lost another one. I lost another helo.”

  “Don’t you worry about that,” Slater said.

  “But Perry and the doctor, ma’am.” Tears leaked from the corner of the pilot’s eyes. Slater felt her gut wrench, horrified at the sight of the steely pilot so upset. She never thought she would see the carefree Mack in this state. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  Slater felt her own tears threatening to escape. She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing them back. What Mack needed, what they all needed, was strength right now, not a tearful leader. “Now’s not the time, Lieutenant. We need you to concentrate on you.”

&nb
sp; She stopped, letting the stretcher continue inside the cruise ship.

  She turned back to the helicopter, seeing Laurie being led toward the hatch by another medic, a blanket and Admiral Reynolds’s arm around her shoulders, leading her inside.

  And then, there he was—Grayson, standing in the helicopter’s hatch, looking calmly around. She felt rage building in her and gritted her teeth. She stormed back toward the helicopter as he dropped to the deck. Jack appeared in the space he’d vacated then followed him down.

  Both men crossed the wind-swept flight deck, toward where she stood with Kendricks.

  “Before you ask, Captain.” Grayson looked at her, his eyes calm and piercing. “I managed to talk him out of it.”

  “Talked him out of what?” Kendricks asked, his expression one of confusion and anger, clearly aimed at seeing Grayson once again on his ship.

  “Out of that little side mission she’d ordered.” Grayson inclined his head toward Slater. “Or was it both of you?”

  “Jack, why is he here?” Slater growled, ignoring him.

  “Ma’am, you have to listen to him,” Jack said quietly. “We have a problem. In fact, two very big problems.”

  “What side mission?” Kendricks interrupted. “What the hell is he talking about?”

  Light seemed to dawn a moment later for Kendricks and he turned to Slater. “What did you do, Heather?”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Jack said. “What matters is—”

  “Heather, I asked, what did you do?” Kendricks repeated his voice low.

  “I said I didn’t want Grayson to come back.” The words blurted out of her before she could stop them. Hours of repressed guilt erupting as surely as that goddamn mountain just had.

  “Christ, Heather.” Kendricks gestured at Grayson. “You promised. You promised you wouldn’t do that shit.”

  “And you said, as I recall, you wanted to hang this traitor from a yardarm.”

  “You’ve got a ship with missiles and guns and bombs,” Kendricks said angrily. “What if I pissed you off, Heather? Would you blow me away? Would you blow Atlantica away? You said, dammit, that you would put this asshole in front of a firing squad but only after going through a court of law, not that you would murder him.”