Expedition (The Locus Series Book 2)

by Ralph Kern

  “And you said if he got on your ship, you would detain, try and execute him,” Slater snapped back. “Look at where he is now. On your flight deck.”

  “It’s only because of you this bastard has managed to get back on my ship,” Kendricks responded in a cutting tone.

  “Guys,” Grayson said. “I am still here, you know.”

  “Shut up!” Slater and Kendricks shouted in unison.

  The moment was broken. Slater looked at Kendricks. His lips curled angrily in response before he turned away. She felt a tug on her heart. She’d never seen the steady man angry before and now, the only other friend she had in the fleet looked on the verge of disowning her. But what she’d ordered had been right... hadn’t it?

  “Stop. Now,” Jack spoke like a drill sergeant addressing day-one recruits. “Look. At the moment, we have bigger problems. Much bigger problems. The first and most immediate of which is that volcano erupting with a horde of giant insects.”

  “Fine.” Kendricks waved his hand. “We’ll talk about Grayson later. Right here and now, though, we may need to evacuate those on land to the ships and consider withdrawing away from the coast to a position of safety.”

  Kendricks pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped away a text. A moment later, Slater felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She glanced at it. Kendricks had called for a general meeting of all senior officers and ship captains in forty-five minutes

  “Okay, let’s break the news to the admiral.”

  “About that,” Jack said, scratching his neck and exchanging a look with Grayson. “That’s the second problem.”

  “What do you mean second problem?” Kendricks said, exasperation in his voice. Slater felt it too. She was used to juggling lots of balls, but problems were coming thick and fast right now.

  “Take a look.” Jack pulled the photograph Grayson had given him out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Kendricks. He looked at it for a moment. His eyes widened as he took it in before he silently handed it to Slater.

  “What is this?” Slater cocked her head as she regarded it. The rollercoaster of the last hour had left her numb as she took in the picture. It showed a collection of people surrounding a table, crude notes in pen denoting who they were. Wakefield was one, and Reynolds another.

  “This,” Grayson said, “is a photograph taken a few days before the Locus event, Captain Slater.”

  “I think you better explain yourself.” Slater felt her previous rage being replaced by confusion. Just what did this mean?

  By the time Grayson had finished telling a much-abbreviated version of his story, Kendricks had gone pale, while Slater could feel her heart beating like a drum in her chest. It couldn’t be. This couldn’t be true.

  But the story held together, or at least as much as Grayson had told so far.

  “So that’s why you never approached us in the years we were on Nest Island.” Slater realized. “As far as you were concerned, we were compromised. You didn’t know whether we were under Wakefield’s control.”

  “Ma’am,” Grayson said, “Last time I had dealings with the US Navy, you tried to blow my ass out of the water. And you succeeded with my partner.”

  “Why are you trusting us now?” Slater asked. “Why not just get at Reynolds when you were aboard last time?”

  “I didn’t even know he was on the damn ship. Look at the size of this thing. I only started putting the pieces together once the Osiris arrived. Then all I wanted to do was get back on the ship, confront Reynolds, and then go get my other team member, Celia Bradley.” Grayson nodded his head toward the superyacht in the distance, moored to the pier. “She’s on there somewhere, in Wakefield’s little harem. I hoped helping on the rescue mission would mean I got cut a little slack and I could start that ball rolling.”

  “You would never have gotten back on Atlantica,” Kendricks said quietly.

  “Well I certainly wasn’t getting on board the Osiris. They’ve had that yacht locked down since they arrived,” Grayson replied. “And you never wondered why?”

  That old bone of contention. A foilable of Wakefield’s they had been willing to accept just because it hadn’t been something they thought worth the fight. It had been placed firmly in a box with a sticky label on it saying: “Deal with it another day.”

  But someone else could have been involved.

  “What about Laurie Reynolds?” Slater asked.

  Jack looked down.

  “Her name never came up during the course of our investigation,” Grayson responded for him. “She may be in on it. She may not and simply be along for the ride. I don’t know.”

  “So, what the hell do we do?” Kendricks asked. “We’re taking the word of a murderer on face value, here.”

  “He’s going to have to come in. We need to get his side of the story.” Jack’s eyes squeezed shut. “And so will she.”

  “I can get my crew to do it.” Slater touched Jack’s shoulder. To arrest his girlfriend and her father was so far beyond having a personal interest in a mission it was ridiculous. Had they been home, there wasn’t a chance it could be entertained.

  But they weren’t home.

  “No, I’ll do it.” Jack looked over at where the mountain was distantly illuminated by the full moon. “But, one thing at a time.”

  “Agreed,” Kendricks said. “We have a more critical and pressing problem at the moment, but in the meantime, I have an idea... oh shit, Tricia.”

  Slater squeezed her eyes shut at the thought of Donovan and Tricia Farelly’s blossoming romance being so brutally cut short.

  ***

  Kendricks entered the bridge and saw the ship’s head of IT staring at her screen. Her face was pale, her lips squeezed into a thin line. He tapped her lightly on the shoulder and inclined his head toward his office. She silently stood and followed him.

  He let the door swing shut and took her by the upper arms. “How are you holding up?”

  The woman nodded in response and gave a slight swallow. “I can’t believe it, Liam. I just can’t.”

  “I’m sorry, Tricia. I know you and Perry were close.”

  “We were... we were courting, or so he said.”

  Kendricks gave a sigh. Trust Donovan to have been all gentlemanly about it. “I know.”

  “He didn’t even call it dating.” Farelly gave a sniff, looking up into the corner of the room with red-rimmed eyes. “I just wanted him to hurry up. God, he was the kindest, smartest, gentlest man in the fleet.”

  Yes, and one of its fiercest warriors when called to it, Kendricks thought. “Do you need a little time off?”

  “No, god no,” she blurted with a sobbing laugh, looking up toward the ceiling as she did. “He would have hated me taking god’s name in vain, you know. Look, I just need to be busy, especially with what’s happening.”

  “Okay, Tricia. I get that.” Kendricks thought for a moment. What he was going to ask for, he needed someone he could trust. “I have something to ask. Something odd, but really important. I can’t tell you the why of it just yet and it has to be totally confidential.”

  She frowned, the confusion apparent on her face. “What do you need?”

  “I need you to put a tap into Admiral Reynolds’s and his daughter’s phone lines. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, easily enough. Everything goes through the ship’s cellular array. But—”

  Kendricks took her hand and held it. “Please, just trust me on this one. And set it up so only I can listen in to it. There’s something not quite right with him, and I need to clear him, or get evidence.”

  “Okay, Liam. I mean, Captain,” she said slowly. “But I don’t like it.”

  “Neither do I, Tricia, neither do I.” He patted her shoulder, trying to reassure the woman.

  The problem was, he didn’t think he had any reassurance left to give.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven – The Present

  Bautista nodded his greeting as he entered Atlantica’s conference room and took the
seat Reynolds gestured to.

  The occupants were grim-faced and taunt, the tension in the room palpable. That fit with the information Bautista heard as he was coming from the coast. They’d lost people on the expedition.

  Laurie sat next to Reynolds, wrapped in the same blanket she had brought off the helicopter. The rest of the places were filled with senior officers and the other ship captains from around the fleet.

  “Thank you for coming, Urbano.” Reynolds nodded a greeting. “We’re just waiting for Conrad.”

  Slater stared down at the table, lost in her own thoughts. Kendricks tapped his fingers in agitation on the table. Jack looked drawn, as if he’d aged ten years in the few hours he’d been away. Only Reynolds seemed his regular, implacable, self.

  The minutes stretched on. The room silent before finally Reynolds glanced at his wristwatch. “We can’t wait on him forever.”

  He stood up, placing his hands behind his back. His commanding presence instantly caused the others to look at him—or to him.

  “We face a problem. Our expedition inland has suggested there may be an existential threat to Anchorage, our community, and our fleet.” Reynolds started. “My dear?”

  “Thank you.” Laurie stood. “As you are all no doubt aware, several days ago we started seeing signs that the mountain fifty miles or so from our position appearing to erupt. We were viewing dense clouds of what looked to be smoke emanating from the peak. We have new information and now no longer think that is the case.”

  Laurie tapped on the conference table. Before each person, a series of images began flashing through. “The ‘smoke’ is actually clouds of a kind of flying creature. They appear to flock and in huge numbers. This is what brought down Lieutenant Mack’s aircraft.” Bautista saw Reynolds give a tolerant smile at Laurie’s misspeak of her rank and call sign. “However, they do not appear to be otherwise aggressive. Touch wood.” She tapped the table with a forefinger. “They aren’t the problem. These, however, are.”

  The image switched to a video clip of the black lava pouring down the mountain. “It is my belief that this mountain is either a constructed hive, akin to a termite mound, or is an existing geographical feature adapted as such. The creatures spilling out, we think, are the mature versions of the flying ones and together, they fill a similar evolutionary niche to that of the locusts from our time. They will devastate the local eco system.”

  Once again, she tapped the table. Another video clip came up. “This is the camera footage from All-American Flight 172, which we’ve established crashed just inland around seven years ago.”

  The camera was designed to pick up what happened in the cockpit, not outside. Still, the landscape beyond could just about be made out. The plane flew from blue of sea to land. Only instead of flying over a verdant forest, it showed a barren brown wasteland.

  “I think this footage shows the swarm’s area of effect will stretch to the coast. The plane just happened to come here after one such... eruption.”

  “It doesn’t make sense these things just devastate the local area.” Kendricks pointed out. “I mean, from an evolutionary standpoint if they wipe out their food source, then the next generation would simply die.”

  “We’ve not had long to process this information. But I would suggest there can be an argument made that it does make sense.” Laurie turned to look at him. “Most of the flora and fauna here is very simplistic. It simply hasn’t had that long to recover after the Perses event and evolve the true complexity and diversity of our time. So, our thoughts are that this locust swarm is operating cyclically. Every year, or perhaps just whenever it gets hungry, this swarm descends, eating everything in sight. Some will die, and obviously they will be leaving their dead, droppings, and what not. Some trigger mechanism, probably when the food runs out, will cause them to retreat back to their hive. This will help make the area as fertile as can be. Then, every year, a fast-growing forest emerges. Mr. Bautista, your farmers have been commenting how fertile the ground is. This could be why.”

  “So every year we’re going to face this?” Bautista rubbed his chin as he looked at the silent video clip which looped. “Having to retreat back to sea to avoid this... this swarm?”

  “Whether every year or not is unknown. But cyclically, certainly. The last data point we have is from seven years ago, and I’d suggest that it would have been a huge coincidence for the airliner to have flown over the last swarm event. Annually would be a reasonable assumption until we get more data, but we have to face the prospect it may be more regularly, or maybe it is less.”

  “Yet we are talking about assumptions for the future,” Bautista said firmly. “But we also have to deal with the here and now.”

  “Yes, we do.” Reynolds nodded. “The most prudent course of action, at this time, is to evacuate the coast and withdraw to sea. Then we need to have our sterns pointed at land ready to haul arse if this swarm’s reach extends into the water. Do we have agreement?”

  Reynolds looked around the table. The senior officers nodded, most reluctantly, but they understood the gravity of the situation.

  “Laurie, please provide a reasonable estimate for how long we have. Everyone else, get loading the ships with everything which isn’t nailed down. A special priority for food and cultivated seed stock. Dismissed.”

  ***

  Reynolds felt the overwhelming need to be with his daughter. But as overwhelming as it was, he needed to control that desire. Too much was happening to get distracted. Not the least learning that Grayson was still in play. He didn’t know what that meant, or what repercussions it might have.

  They were walking down the corridor, his arm around his daughter while Jack trailed along behind. He was characteristically quiet. Not for the first time, Reynolds appreciated that opposites truly did attract. And they didn’t get much more opposite than the introspective Jack and outgoing, chatty, Laurie.

  He felt his phone buzzing in his pocket again. He hadn’t even had time to look at it with the rush of meetings. He glanced at the screen. Wakefield. As the phone stopped calling, he saw he had twelve missed calls.

  “Darling...” Reynolds kissed the top of Laurie’s head, letting his lips linger on her smooth hair. “I have to go to my office to sort some things out. I’ll come back to the suite as soon as I can. I promise.”

  “I know you’re busy.” Laurie gave a thin, but reassuring smile. “I’ll be okay, honestly. Do what you need to do, Daddy.”

  Reynolds gave his daughter a squeeze before releasing her. He turned off, heading toward the small office which he had taken over as his own, and closed the door just as Wakefield called again.

  “Reynolds.”

  “Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for the last hour.”

  “You may not have noticed but we’re a little bloody busy here with a small existential threat to the fleet,” Reynolds snapped back. “Speaking of which, you were supposed to be here to help us figure out what we’re going to do about it.”

  “My pilot told me Grayson came back from the mission.” Wakefield ignored him. “You told me he wouldn’t, then your damn pet captain basically threatened to unleash hell if the helicopter—my goddamn helicopter—landed anywhere but on Atlantica.”

  “Clearly they decided not to go ahead with it.”

  “Clearly,” Wakefield snapped. “And why’s that?”

  “I don’t bloody know, Conrad. A crisis of conscience? Not that you’d know what that is.”

  “Things are getting too damn hot here for my liking.” The phone speaker was silent for a long moment. “We’re getting out of Dodge. You can come or not. I don’t care. But we’re heading out.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Somewhere where we’re not likely to be summarily shot, John. If Grayson knows just what effect triggering the Locus had and spills, they are going to be baying for blood.”

  Reynolds squeezed his eyes closed at the sudden heart-wrenching pain.

&n
bsp; “I hear Europe’s good this time of year,” Wakefield continued. “It’s past time we make contact with the other Loci, and now my ass has been incentivized. We’re gonna start prepping and sailing. You have a couple of hours to decide if you’re coming or not.”

  The phone went dead. Reynolds placed it down and leaned back in his creaking leather chair.

  Once again, the world was going to be upended.

  ***

  “And this came in a few minutes ago?” Kendricks plucked the earbud out.

  “Yes, sir.” Farelly’s eyes were still red-rimmed and puffy, yet her voice was firm. “It seems... damning.”

  Kendricks felt the tightness in his chest, a physical symptom of the pain of learning who, no what, the man who had become his mentor was. He turned to Jack who stood, his arms folded, by the computer suite door. As soon as Farelly had said she had intercepted a call, he’d been pulled reluctantly away from his reunion with Laurie.

  “Jack, this is incontrovertible. He has to come in,” Kendricks spoke through the dryness in his throat. “And quickly. If they go, we’ll never track them down.”

  Jack nodded. The only sign of the tension the man must have felt were the cords in his neck protruding. “I’ll go get the admiral.”

  He turned to go. Kendricks caught his arm. “He’s been our friend. We at least owe it to him to hear his side of the story. Don’t—”

  “I’m not Grayson,” Jack interrupted quietly. “I think I’ve just proven that.”

  “Good.” Kendricks released his arm. “I’m going to update Heather.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight – The Present

  The automatic doors slid open, and Jack stalked purposely into the security center. Grayson looked up from where he sat at the table, his hands resting flat on the surface. Two security guards overlooked him, both with their weapons drawn, ready to do whatever they needed to do to keep this dangerous man in here.