by J. A. Scorch
"Hey, where are you going?"
"I have to go back out there and find him."
"That's the worst idea ever." Reluctantly, Clay unbuckled himself from the seat and rushed toward Porter. Anyone could see how much effort it was taking the lieutenant to walk around, so Porter stopped exiting the Dragonette.
"Don't do it, sir. If you go after him now, you're dead. We shouldn't be alive as it is. You have to stop risking your life to do what you think is right."
Porter gazed back to find Clay had gotten a grip on his forearm. He brushed off his hand and turned away. "I can't sit around here waiting for the UEF to figure out their next move. Teve will be dead by then."
"No, he won't. He's got whatever it is that these soldiers have running through their bodies. If those three managed to save us from over fifty Stiltz without taking a single hit, then your brother will be all right."
Porter closed his eyes for a moment and exhaled audibly. "Okay, you're right. It's not like they'll give me another Dragonette to lose again."
"Let's hope not, sir," Clay said with a smile. "I don't think I could stomach another ride like that."
Porter chuckled as a familiar voice came booming into the ship from outside.
"What the hell did you do?" Miller shouted.
"Sir?" Porter asked as he swiveled around to face the general.
"Don't you 'sir' me, asshole. That little stunt of yours just cost us the assault."
"With all due respect, sir—"
"Shut it, Captain. I didn't ask for your excuses. Because of your little joy flight into town, the Zeal defenses were activated ahead of time. We lost any chance of gaining momentum."
Porter knew in his mind how small of an impact his flying would have influenced the overall assault. The Zeal defenses were always watching. If anything, he created a wild target for the Zeal to try and punch out. Miller was doing what all officers in his position did when an op failed: shift the blame.
The rant continued as Miller switched targets between Porter and Clay. "You two Martian space jockeys are grounded until further notice."
"Grounded?" Porter asked. "You can't ground us. We're not in the UEF."
Miller moved in for the kill to within a centimeter of Porter's face. "When you're on this rock we call Earth, your ass is mine. Now, if either one of you dickheads even thinks about jumping into one of my birds, you'll be facing a firing squad. I'll put you up against a wall and pull the trigger myself. Are we clear?"
"Sir, yes, sir," Porter and Clay both said as one.
"Now get the hell out of my sight." Miller waited for the pilots to leave the bird and head toward their makeshift camp of MAF personnel. The tent city of Martian soldiers and pilots was attached to the base.
"Jesus," Clay said.
"What?"
"There goes my career. I'll be doing milk runs for the rest of my life now. Thanks a lot, sir."
"Don't worry about the general, Lieutenant. He's just looking for someone to blame. I was an easy target. If he meant any of what he said, we'd be facing that firing squad already."
Clay shook his head. "How can you know that? He seems like the kind of officer who would do such a thing."
Porter stared at Miller as he made his way back to the control room. "Trust me, Clay. I've seen them all. Deep down people like Miller are more afraid of their superiors than anything else. It's just the way Command works."
The two arrived at the MAF camp. Clay moved toward his assigned bunk and plonked down. He kicked off his boots and rubbed his eyes.
"Is this one taken?" Porter asked as he pointed to the top bunk.
"No, but—"
"Looks okay to me." He climbed to the top and rested his head back on the half-deflated pillow.
"Make yourself at home, sir," Clay said, not trying to hide his annoyance.
"I figured we are already the best of friends. Why not make it official?"
"Kill me now, sir," Clay replied.
Porter swung his head down over the edge. "Do me a favor. Drop the sirs, will you? I don't exactly feel like an officer at the moment. There's something about this place that takes me back to the bad old days when I was still learning to fly. Good times."
"I'll do my best," Clay said. "So, what do you think Miller will do with us?"
Porter took a moment to think as Teve entered his mind again. "I don't know, but I can tell you now, I'm not going to sit around here and wait for that asshole to make a decision."
Clay went to object, but his words didn't come out as anything other than a bit of noise.
"Get some rest, Lieutenant. Tomorrow's another day."
Chapter Fourteen
Teve reached the top of the ladder and realized there was a manhole cover waiting to be shoved open. The thick, rusted metal would make one hell of a sound if they pushed it.
"Mish," he called down. "Do you see this?"
"Yeah. It probably comes out in the middle of the road. If we pop it, we will need to run for cover as soon as we can. Otherwise, we should go back down and take our chances in the sewers."
"No, screw that," Teve said. "We need to find a way home. The surface is our best bet. Granted, it will be as dark as it is in here; we don't have much choice."
"I agree," Mish said. "Pop the lid. I'm ready."
Teve took a breath and lowered himself down enough to give his right arm some space to spool up the energy needed to crack open the sewer cover. He thumped into the heavy object and felt the rusted seal around the circle snap in one hit as it lifted up and slammed down into place. "That's loosened it. I'll see if I can sweep the area before we charge out into the middle of a Stilt patrol."
With his rifle clipped to his chest, Teve pulled out his sidearm and gently raised one section of the manhole cover. He poked the barrel of the gun through the gap and stared out at the scene outside. There was little to see apart from some burning wreckage in the distance. He repeated the process until he had checked every angle possible.
"Seems pretty clear," he said, gazing back down the ladder. "No Stiltz or hybrids around. It's now or never."
Mish placed a hand on the grip of her rifle for a moment, unconsciously reassuring herself with the weapon before she switched off her flashlight. "Okay, let's go."
Teve nodded as he holstered his pistol. He lifted the lid and slid it quietly to one side. He climbed out of the hole and immediately pulled his rifle from his chest as he lowered down to sweep the area again for hostiles.
Mish came up and out a second later and did the same, placing her back against his.
"Clear," she said.
"Clear," he confirmed.
The two soldiers relaxed a tiny amount as Teve realized there were no sounds of UEF gunfire or Zeal missiles blazing away to punch the limited air support of the MAF out of the sky.
"What gives?" he asked Mish, almost whispering.
"Did they call off the assault?" Mish asked.
"Seems that way."
"You don't think it failed, do you?"
Teve let the thought sink in. Ever since Los Angeles, the Zeal had almost given up. They still defended the bases they occupied, but they made no strategic effort to push the UEF back. Apart from killing the prisoners within their walls, the Zeal made no attempts to recapture fallen bases. Without their fleet, they seemed lost. The UEF and MAF were simply cleaning up the mess.
"We better keep moving," Teve said. "If the assault was a wash, then the patrols will be back up in force. The only saving grace we might get out of this is a lack of hybrids running around." The hybrids tended to stay close to the base despite being able to go beyond the range of the Orb that gave every Stilt in the area the ability to function on its own away from their natural environment. The human side of the hybrids gave the aliens new abilities the Stiltz could never have.
"Okay. Then this way is home, I think," Mish said. It wasn't too difficult to tell which way the UEF base was once they moved past a large, half-intact building. A trail of destruct
ion in the form of burning wrecks littered the city.
"I guess the assault failed," Teve whispered as he saw the line of fallen birds. The losses taken would number in the hundreds if the transporters were fully loaded.
"What the hell happened?" Mish asked out loud. "Do you think this is our fault?"
"No," Teve replied. "It can't be. We took the Zeal by surprise the way we always have. Maybe this was bad luck."
"I hope so. If this is because of us, I don't think I could handle knowing I caused the death of this many soldiers and pilots."
Teve stared at the nearest burning wreck as his mind drifted back to one of the first UEF missions he and Mish took part in to retake Los Angeles. They were new to the UEF and barely survived a crash landing when their transporter got shot down by the Zeal along with almost every other UEF bird in the sky. That mission was a failure on a catastrophic level that would set the pace for the next three years.
"This isn't our doing, " Teve said. "The only ones to blame are the Zeal. They shot those ships out of the air. Maybe Command shouldn't have sent them in, but that's out of our hands."
Mish gave him a weak smile that soon faded back into a half frown. Even in the dark with their flashlights extinguished, Teve could see the pain building in her face. Survivor's guilt had a way of controlling every soldier. Now that they each had nanites giving them an edge over the regular fighters in the UEF, that guilt was beginning to rise with every mission survived.
"Zeal patrol up ahead," Mish said, dropping down a moment later. "Should we engage?"
Teve scooted up to the edge of a rubble mound and aimed the optical sight on his rifle down the line toward four Stiltz moving in unison. Through the digitally-enhanced, night vision lens of his weapon, he could see the finer details of the lead alien. Its dominant, metallic chest and lack of head still gave Teve the creeps as he lined up a shot.
"Negative," he said as he lowered the rifle to a safe level. "We should keep moving. There's probably too many of them still out there to contend with. At least not until we're farther away from this damn base."
Mish continued to stare in the direction of the patrol without her scope. He could see that look in her eyes he'd seen a thousand times before. She wanted to kill every last one of them.
"Come on. Let's go," Teve said as he grabbed her arm with a gentle squeeze. The pressure jolted her back to the present and into survival mode as she swept her eyes around the area to stay alert. They were still in the middle of a battlefield that once was Atlanta. The telltale landmarks of the city had been either leveled and destroyed or replaced by Zeal infrastructure.
The pair carefully maneuvered along and through another building's skeleton, quickly emerging out the other side. Teve swept left as Mish swept right so they could cover each other from any Stiltz that might have been waiting in silence to attack.
The twisted path they wove was devoid of life, Zeal or human, as they followed the destruction of the downed UEF transports. The chances of surviving such a crash were slim but conceivable given Mish and Teve's history, so they opted to search each downed bird when possible.
"This one is toast," Mish said at the second wreck. "Thing must have taken at least three direct hits. Not to mention the laser scars all along the fuselage. Bastards didn't stand a chance."
Teve didn't argue. The transport had been scattered to the point that it met up with the next bird. He motioned for her to continue as he checked their six for hostiles. The occasional patrol stomped about, not taking much notice of the two soldiers that were at the center of the latest battle between human and Zeal.
Mish kicked a piece of UEF armor as she moved along and away from the spread-out flames of the wreckage. The fractured plating had been torn in two with ease by the impact energy dispersed throughout the craft when it came thundering down into the debris-strewn remains of an apartment complex.
Keeping a few paces apart from one another the pair came to the next crash site. The aircraft wasn't broken into as many pieces as the last one they spent time investigating, but the damage was still significant.
Teve waved his e-slate through the inside of the crashed Dragonette, scanning for a heartbeat. "I'm not seeing anyone that's still in one piece. Nothing but bodies without pulses."
"Same up in the cockpit," Mish said. "The pilot took a clean laser hit to the face."
"What about the co-pilot?"
Mish poked her head down into the cargo hold. "There wasn't one, by the look of things."
"That's odd," Teve said as he thought about the discovery. "Do you think they sent them out unprepared? Maybe that's why they failed."
"Could be. It's the only thing that makes sense. But Miller wouldn't do that, would he?"
Teve's mouth started to open, but a third voice interrupted.
"The general didn't cause any of this."
Mish and Teve turned sharply toward the outside of the Dragonette through a hole in the fuselage. Teve flicked on his flashlight, not worrying about giving away their position to any hybrids. The beam of his light covered the bloody face of a man in an MAF flight suit.
"Whoa," said the man as he saw Teve's rifle aimed at his face.
"Sorry," Teve said. "Just using the flashlight to see who's there.
Mish came down in a rush and approached the stranger. "Are you the co-pilot?"
"What gave it away? The flight suit or this gash in my head?" The man pointed to the blood pouring out the side of his skull as he limped inside the Dragonette. Mish attempted to help him, but her offer got rejected by the pilot as he struggled his way over to one of the still functional seats of the ship.
"The name's Lieutenant Francis Sutton of the Mars Armed Forces."
"Master Sergeant Teve Porter. And this is Staff Sergeant Roxana Mishina." Mish nodded at Sutton.
"Pleased to meet you both. Shame it wasn't under better circumstances."
"No kidding, sir," Teve said. "I don't suppose you can fill us in on what happened here?"
The question forced a laugh out of Sutton's mouth as he threw his head backward. "Not much to say, really. They had us on standby, ready to fight. The alarm sounded, so Miller sent us in as planned. I've flown over a dozen of these liberation sorties since I landed on Earth, and not one of them has gone as pear shaped as this mission."
"What went wrong, sir?" Mish asked as she squatted down by Sutton.
"Everything. The damn aliens actually wanted to defend this city for a change. Usually, they put up only a little bit of fight against our air support. This time, they threw everything they had at us. Hell, most of our recon scans were wrong. There had to be twice as many defenses than expected."
"Shit," Teve said as he shook his head.
"Exactly. It was like the Zeal wanted this city to be left alone, but I don't see a difference between this base and the next one."
Teve's mind drifted to thoughts of his foggy conversation with X. This had to be his doing. But how did he know Teve would be here, and why did he want to speak to him so badly? Nothing was making sense anymore.
"So, what brings you two out here?" Sutton asked.
Mish and Teve exchanged a quick glance. If they told this pilot that they were the reason he'd been shot down, he might not take it so well."
"We got cut off after we landed," Teve said. "They told us to retreat, but we were already too far into the city to back out."
Sutton let a smile break on the side of his mouth. "Funny that. None of the SF transporters made it this far. At least that's what the computer told me before we hit the dirt. The only boots on the ground came from the Humvees storming in from way back there. They retreated, of course." Sutton pointed toward home.
Without thinking, Teve's eyes snapped to Mish's.
"Trying to think up a lie to justify your first story?" Sutton asked. "Don't waste your time. I know you're both a part of the Special Forces recon team." He leaned back and closed his eyes.
Teve and Mish did have a slightly different unif
orm from the average UEF soldier. Teve seemed surprised the MAF pilot noticed. "Was it the UESF symbol that gave us away?"
Sutton's eyes flicked open as he lowered his head and leaned toward Teve. "Nope. It had more to do with those purple eyes of yours and the fact that you two are still alive and walking around like you own the place." The lieutenant's voice raised a few decibels.
"Hey, flyboy," Mish said as she stood. "Keep the volume down."
Sutton's attention snapped to Mish's comment. "I don't think I heard a 'sir' in that command you just issued, Sergeant."
Mish gritted her teeth and held back the rage Teve could see growing in her eyes.
"Just because you two have alien tech corrupting your bodies doesn't mean you can break the chain of command."
"My apologies, sir," Mish said. "But we need the noise to a minimum if we are going to survive this."
Sutton smiled again and leaned back with both arms behind his head. He winced a little in the move but tried to conceal his pain from the two. "I highly doubt any of us are going to make it past the 200 Stiltz out there on the other side of this building."
Chapter Fifteen
Porter woke up when someone nudged him in his rack. His thoughts quickly transitioned to the image of his girlfriend, Captain Nicole Cannon, interrupting him for some midnight fun back on the MBC Andromeda. The Martian battle carrier had been his home for most of the war as it rotated with other carriers along the front line of the conflict in space. With the three Zeal ships known as Cyclones either destroyed or captured, there was little action going on around Earth's orbit.
"Wake up," the voice demanded. It wasn't the sweet yet commanding call of Nicole, but the gruff sound of a UEF grunt. Porter rotated around and stared down at a corporal standing as close to his bunk as possible. He saw his name to be Michaels. Two other corporals stood behind him with arms crossed over their chests.
"Something you need, Corporal?"
"Yeah," the man said as he screwed up his nose, "I need you gone."
Porter didn't break eye contact with the grunt. He could see this wasn't a friendly wake up call. "Didn't hear a 'sir' in that sentence of yours, Michaels."
