by Lee Stephen
This time there was no hesitation.
She hurriedly adjusted her comm, and relayed her message to the Fourteenth. “Their attention’s away from you, engage now.”
Then, something happened. Something she didn’t expect. The Fourteenth questioned her—a voice she didn’t yet recognize. “Are you sure?”
“Yes!” she answered. “You have to engage now.”
“We are going,” the voice answered.
Her heart raced. Adrenaline pulsed through her veins. She had done it.
Scott dropped to his knees and reloaded a new clip into his rifle. When his comm crackled to life, the voice he heard made him go rigid.
It was Captain Ulrich of the Eighth. His voice was confident and clear.
“Eighth engaging!”
Before Scott could utter a word, Jayden’s voice blurted through the comm. “Holy hell! The Eighth is engaging!”
Scott froze. David spun to face him. The world was thrust into slow motion.
The Eighth was attacking. They were stepping into the open, right when the Ceratopians were aware of them, at exactly the wrong time.
They were engaging out of sync.
The Fourteenth watched in horror as the Ceratopians unleashed their fury.
Esther fought back a grin as tingles sparked through her body. She was redeemed. She was in the game. She had done what she was trained to do. And now she watched as the attack she’d called in began to take place. As soon as it did, her entire body went numb.
The Eighth. The Eighth was pressing forward. And the Ceratopians were firing on them. Her heart pounded. Her breathing stopped. What were they doing? Why were they on the offensive? They were doing exactly what she had told the Fourteenth to do. And the Fourteenth wasn’t doing anything at all. It was as though they had both gotten their orders confused.
All of a sudden, she froze. She froze colder than she’d ever frozen before. Her heart nearly died in her chest.
Her fingers trembled to the surface of her helmet, where they shivered against its cold metal frame. Her lower lip started to quiver.
…please no…please God, please no…
As soon as she felt the comm pad, she knew why the Eighth was attacking. They had no reason not to.
She had just commed the wrong unit.
Scott leapt to his feet as a tidal wave of neon swept over the Eighth. Everyone in the Fourteenth fired their weapons. “Captain Ulrich, what are you doing?” he screamed. “We haven’t made our attack!”
The situation immediately worsened. As the Eighth stumbled under the initial attack, the Ceratopians made their own charge. The alien warriors dwarfed their EDEN enemies as they physically overtook them. Demolitionists were thrown aside like rag dolls. They were bludgeoned and flung through midair. They were crushed by the Ceratopians’ sheer strength.
They were utterly dominated.
The Eighth’s channel screamed with chaos.
“Captain Ulrich!” shouted Scott again. “You have to fall back!”
Ulrich’s voice hollered through the fray. “You told us to engage!”
“Negative, sir, we did not! Fall back! Fall back!”
David’s mouth fell open as a pulse grenade flew amid the retreating members of the Eighth. “Oh my God!” When it detonated, EDEN operatives flew in all directions.
Clarke’s voice cried through the comm. “Ulrich! Fall back!”
Scott reloaded yet another clip into his rifle. “They were supposed to wait for our signal!” He and David unloaded their weapons, but the Ceratopians barely paid them mind. The Eighth was the easier prey. The Fourteenth watched helplessly as one demolitionist after another was blown away by the force of the Ceratopians and their weapons.
“Will an’ Derrick!” Becan screamed through the comm.
“Grenades!” Scott yelled as he pulled one from his belt. “Hit them with grenades!” He pressed in the activation button and flicked it toward the Ceratopians. Seconds after the orb landed amid the aliens, it exploded with a fiery, ear-shattering boom.
David followed suit, as did the team across the street.
The Ceratopians split for the cover of the warehouses. The remaining Eighth fled in retreat.
Clarke’s voice crackled over the open airwaves. “Captain Ulrich, how do you stand?”
“Damn you, Fourteenth! How do you think we stand?”
Scott shook his head as he took up his rifle again. “We never began our assault!”
“Why did you lie to us?” Ulrich screamed.
“I swear to you!” Clarke said. “We didn’t say a thing!”
“Captain Ulrich,” said Scott. “No one relayed the engagement order!”
Ulrich was livid. “We even asked you to confirm!”
“We didn’t confirm anything!”
“For the last time, yes she did!”
At exactly the same moment, Scott and David froze. Their gazes locked on the battle, as Ulrich’s words echoed through the air.
David fell backward. He fell backward, right on his rear, and dropped his gun to his side. “…oh no…”
Across the street, Becan lowered his head to the ground.
Esther was listening to the entire episode from the rooftop. Her hands were locked in front of her mouth; her fingers trembled like leaves in a hurricane. When Scott spoke her name, her entire body flinched.
“Esther Brooking…”
She had to answer. She had no choice. She wanted to run away—to run to the ends of the Earth, but the tone of his voice kept her frozen. Her stomach turned inside out, and her hand shook wildly over her comm.
She already knew she was gone.
“…I thought I was talking to you…”
Back at the dumpsters, David pulled off his helmet and covered his face.
Scott lost all control. “You thought you were talking to me?”
Tears streamed down Esther’s face. Her voice quivered beyond recognition. “Lieutenant, I’m sorry! God, please, I’m so—”
“Get back to the landing zone!”
Her panicked response was immediate. “Yes sir, I’m coming!”
Scott closed the channel and hurled down his rifle.
David reached out to grab him. “Scott, calm down.”
“She’s a trashing scout! And she doesn’t know how to work a trashing comm?”
Becan’s voice quivered over the channel. “Remmy, please, she didn’t mean it.”
“She just killed half the Eighth!”
“Travis,” Clarke said over the airwaves, “bring the Pariah down to pick us up. We’re going back to Novosibirsk.”
Scott snapped a glare across the street. “No!” he yelled through the comm. “It’s not too late to press on!”
“Lieutenant Remington!” Clarke hollered back. The captain’s patience was gone. “The Eighth are pulling out! Do you think Dostoevsky can capture the Cruiser by himself once they leave him? Do you think we can hold this street by ourselves?”
“We can defend this town!”
“No we cannot! Travis, bring down the Pariah at once!”
“Yes sir,” said Travis.
Clarke’s irate tone carried on. “Commander Dostoevsky, we will be picking you up at your drop point. Abandon your assault on the Cruiser.”
Dostoevsky snarled through the comm.
David was the first to see Esther when she stumbled back to the dumpsters. She hinged on the verge of hysteria. “It was my fault!” She could barely stay on her feet. “It was my fault!”
David grabbed her before she could fall. She hid her face in his chest. “It’s all right,” he said, resting his hand on her head. “Esther, it’s all right.”
As soon as Scott saw her, he ripped his helmet off. “What in the hell was that?”
Esther twitched at the sound of his voice.
David turned his head around. “Scott, leave her alone, she’s traumatized.”
“You think the Eighth’s not traumatized?”
“Scott,
stop!”
Their attention was averted as the Pariah touched down. As soon as it did, the Ceratopians fired upon it.
Scott grabbed his rifle and knelt to the ground. His finger assaulted the trigger.
“Come on,” David said to Esther, “let’s get on board.”
She struggled back. “No! Please, I don’t want to go. Just leave me here, please!”
“Esther,” David said, as he lifted her chin to see her eyes. “You’re going to be okay. I won’t let anything happen.”
She could barely speak through her sobs. “I don’t…”
David grabbed her and pulled her close. His arms wrapped around her back as she fell against his chest again. “Esther,” he whispered, “we’re not going to leave you behind.” She didn’t have the strength to resist. All she could muster was a terrified whimper. As Scott ferociously covered them, David led her back to the ship.
Scott had had enough. He didn’t care what Captain Clarke had ordered. He could hold this town. Maybe they couldn’t, but he could. As his assault rifle ran out of ammunition, he unholstered his sidearm. Walking into the open street, he aimed it at the Ceratopians and unleashed.
Within seconds, one of the massive aliens fell.
Still, Scott pressed on toward them. As his sidearm unloaded his wrath, he screamed with fury—a sound that was almost inhuman.
It didn’t take long for the rest of the Fourteenth to board the Pariah. As Jayden held suppression from the ground, the injured Clarke was assisted into the ship. As soon as he was aboard, Travis grabbed the controls. “We’re about to go!”
Suddenly, Jayden’s attention snapped ahead. “Scott!”
Scott did not hear Jayden’s cries. His ears echoed with gunfire. His vision was reddened with anger. As another Ceratopian fell, his screaming became violently worse.
Then Jayden was there.
“Scott, come on, man!” He tugged at Scott’s side as the Ceratopians returned fire. Scott fired for another moment before the Texan forced him back. “We can’t hold this place, man! We gotta go!”
Scott was the last one inside. His finger did not relax from the trigger until the bay door finally whirred shut. The Pariah took off immediately, and the lieutenant threw down his sidearm and sat. He banged his head back against the wall.
“Remington!” Clarke said. “Please calm yourself.”
“We could have held it.”
“You know that’s not true!”
David guided Esther down in the far corner of the troop bay. She clung to his side the whole while. “Anyone hear from Will and Derrick?” he asked.
Nobody had.
David adjusted his comm. “Will, Derrick? You guys out there?”
Several seconds of silence passed, and then the demolitionist’s voice crackled through. “We’re here. We’re okay. We’re loading people aboard, and we’ll see you when we get home.”
“Good enough,” David said as he closed the channel. From beside him, Becan sighed in relief.
Farther back in the bay, Scott and Clarke exchanged verbal blows. “If nothing else, we could have kept them in check!” Scott said. “All we needed was time to reorganize!”
“Time to reorganize?” Clarke almost laughed. “The Eighth are decimated! There’s no way we could have held our position.”
“You couldn’t, but I could’ve.”
Clarke’s nostrils flared. “You will not speak again, lieutenant.”
“We could have held it!”
“I will not be challenged whilst you vent your wrath for Nicole!”
Silence. The entire troop bay was hit with the worst kind of tension. Nobody uttered a sound.
Clarke stared Scott down as the younger man turned to the far wall. “You are relieved until I see fit for you to return,” Clarke said. “Until I see fit. Not you.”
Scott said nothing in reply.
Dostoevsky, Max, Oleg, and Varvara were picked up on the beach, their assault on the Cruiser a unified failure. Though none of them were injured, they undoubtedly would not have survived had they carried on without the Eighth. Though they immediately picked up on the tension in the Pariah, they made no mention of it. Instead, they took their seats and waited while the cursed transport returned to The Machine.
Scott was the first to leave the Pariah when it docked. He clutched his helmet in his hand; his sweat-dried hair was a wreck. The cut on his cheek had coagulated into a lump of dark red blood. Its dried drippings trailed down his face.
“Remmy,” Becan said as he jogged to catch up. “Remmy, please, stop for a second.”
Jayden was close behind. David stayed with Esther by the ship.
Scott heard the Irishman, but made no effort to stop.
“Remmy…”
Before Scott could go farther, Becan hurried to get ahead of him. He stepped backward as Scott kept his pace.
“Please Remmy, it’s me. I don’t want to hurt yeh.”
“Get out of my way, McCrae.”
“This isn’t the way to go abou’ this.”
Suddenly, Scott slammed his helmet to the ground and grabbed the Irishman by the collar. “The way to go about this…” Scott snarled in a voice Becan had never heard before. After several seconds of uneasy quiet, Scott released Becan’s armor. He glared for several moments, then stormed past. His statement was left unfinished.
Becan stepped aside and watched as Scott marched toward the exit; the rest of the unit stared from behind. For several seconds the Irishman stood still. Then he turned to Scott’s helmet.
The helmet lay abandoned on the floor of the hangar, where Scott had hammered it down. The visor was completely shattered, and a crack was split down the EDEN logo—the letters on its front cut in two.
Becan stared at the helmet for several moments, then returned his gaze to the door for one final glimpse of the lieutenant. But it was too late. The doorway to the hangar was vacant.
Scott Remington was already gone.
14
Monday, August 8, 0011 NE
EDEN Command
“My thanks to all of you for attending this meeting,” said Benjamin Archer. “I’m sure when the president asked me to investigate the Novosibirsk matter further, none of you expected results quite this soon. In truth, I hadn’t either.”
Torokin watched Archer make his initial speech in front of the conference room. It was early in the morning—earlier than normal for an impromptu meeting. But none of the other judges complained. For the very first time, it appeared that progress with the Novosibirsk situation was being made.
“In my brief examination of Novosibirsk, I’ve uncovered some information that…for lack of a better word, astounds me. As you all know, yesterday we were able to determine that General Thoor may have used the Bakma assault as a stepping stone to thin out EDEN’s influence at his base. I’ve used that as my basis for investigation, and I found results immediately.”
Archer handed a stack of papers to the judge on his right. “Allow me to explain the papers you’re receiving now.”
Torokin watched as Archer’s report made its way around the table. Not only did Archer look the part of a prince, but he acted it, too. The blond-haired judge had grabbed the reigns of the High Command and was running with them. It didn’t matter that Archer had a knack for Xenobiology—Torokin didn’t like this one bit.
“I’d hypothesized that General Thoor was using the Bakma in the assault to weed out EDEN soldiers. His intention? To restock Novosibirsk, not with EDEN, but with Nightmen. He longs for control, and his role as a former Nightman captain gives him more than enough influence to wield it.”
President Pauling leaned back as he listened. A copy of Archer’s papers sat before him.
“On pages one through seven of my report,” Archer said, “you will see an extensive psychological profile on Ignatius van Thoor. I’d encourage you all to examine it thoroughly, but for now I’ll save you the time and paraphrase. General Thoor is military brilliance exemplified. Bu
t he also suffers from an egomaniacal self-perception. In the mind of Ignatius van Thoor, power is of the utmost importance.
“Take a moment to examine his history. Read the remarks of his superiors while he was young in the Nightman order. Read the remarks of those under him now. Three words will consistently emerge. Proud. Ruthless. Relentless. He is the perfect dictator. He is a symbol of autocratic tyranny at its most destructive, because he is controlled. His ambitions do not overflow. He allows them to be released as they suit his needs. He sets his sights on a goal, and he stays his course until that goal is fulfilled, never acting on the emotion of a moment. He is tactical in his tyranny.”
Archer placed his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Being tactical is precisely what he is doing now. Beginning on page seven, you’ll see a telling series of statistics…nine pages’ worth. You’ll see every log of every alien incursion that Novosibirsk has handled in the past four and a half years.” He glanced down at one of the papers and read aloud.
“February 5, year 0007. Ceratopian Cruiser. Handled by the unit known as the Seventh. Forty percent casualties, zero Nightmen involved.
“February 7. Bakma Carrier. Handled by the Third. Zero casualties, five Nightmen involved.
“February 26. Ceratopian advance on Moscow. Handled by the First, Seventh, and Fourteenth. Over sixty percent casualties—zero Nightmen involved. So bad was it, in fact, that the Fourteenth were completely decimated, and consequently restocked—with three Nightmen officers.
“There is a trend here,” Archer went on. “Notice the Nightmen’s involvement relative to the varying degrees of risk. If the intruding species is Bakma…the Nightmen are dispatched. If it’s a Ceratopian vessel of any significance whatsoever…EDEN are. We all know the vast difference between the Ceratopians and the Bakma. He has purposely assigned EDEN the operations with higher risks of fatality. He hasn’t just started to weed us out. He’s been weeding us out for years. And he’s got just enough inconsistency thrown in to pass it off as coincidence. “
