Reclaim: Books 1-3

by J. A. Scorch

  Needing to change the subject, he refocused on the present. "So, what have we found this time?"

  "I'm going over the main feed now," Garcia said. "Looks like more specs on the unknown ships." Her tablet had a program that could process some of the data on the fly. The rest needed to be handled by the experts.

  "This is good stuff," she continued. "We can find their weaknesses and relay everything to the pilots and SF soldiers. I only hope the science teams get the job done in time."

  Teve felt like he'd been turned into a machine, and not the killing kind he had grown accustomed to over the last year. He studied Garcia's eyes as her brow screwed up tight while the tablet inched closer to her face.

  "No, this can't be right. Come on, dammit. Tell me this is wrong."

  "What is it?" he asked.

  Garcia didn't take her eyes off the screen as she flicked through page after page of intelligence.

  "If I understand this correctly, the Zeal are going to splinter off into two attack forces. One will head for Earth, and the other will go to Mars."

  "Shit," Teve let out.

  "Exactly my thoughts. We may have shot ourselves collectively in the foot by trying to meet the enemy head on. If those two attack forces reach Earth and Mars, it's all over."

  "What can we do? Surely there's time to turn around and—" Teve realized before he said it out loud. His eyes locked with Garcia's. "We have to choose which planet to defend."

  The commodore didn't confirm or deny his thought. She instead began pacing the room. "This is beyond fucked. I have to send this up the line, right now." She charged toward the exit.

  "Wait," Teve shouted after her.

  She stopped in her tracks and swiveled around. "Out with it. We don't have a second to waste."

  Teve fumbled with his logic for a moment. "If we only defend one planet, we will divide the fleet. Our ships are housing people from Earth capable of killing a lot of personnel on board without much effort. They won't want to hear Command's plans to leave Earth for the Zeal to chop up into pieces. And trust me when I say this: I could have easily killed your men before, even when their rifles were trained on my head."

  Garcia's eyes were wide in her head, desperately seeking out an answer to her impossible question. "What choice do we have, Sergeant? We are against the wall and outnumbered. At least this way we hold a chance of saving one of our planets."

  He shook his head. "Surely we can—"

  "We can what? We're beyond screwed. We might as well just give up now and let them take it all." She didn't continue out the door as Teve expected. Instead, she found the nearest surface to lean against and slid down to the floor in a heap.

  Teve got up and moved over to sit down beside her. "We can't give up. You know that, ma’am."

  "Maybe it's time we did. Maybe we've been fighting the inevitable the entire time."

  Shaking his head without realizing it, Teve thought about X's words to him about the truth. He was yet to discover this truth from the hybrid, but he knew the device Garcia had in her pocket was the key to everything.

  "What if we keep going? Don't tell Command about this until we need to. We could find something that solves all our problems."

  "That's a pretty significant risk, Sergeant. If we find nothing, we'd be destroying any hope we had left to defend whatever piece of space we can manage to cover."

  Teve could see her mind ticking over with thought. Her eyes darted around in her head as if she were running scenarios in there. She shook her head, cutting off his next argument.

  "We can't gamble the human race like this. I won't be responsible for the death of millions of people on the one planet we can actually defend." Garcia pushed herself back up to her feet. "Mars will be the front line. There's no other option. Earth will need to make do for now."

  The commodore didn't wait for Teve to respond as she headed for the exit. "What about the Special Forces soldiers on every ship in the fleet? What will we tell them?"

  Garcia stopped short of the bulkhead. She slumped her shoulders and turned back to face him. "We say nothing. Our orders are to fight the Zeal. They won't know what's happened until it's too late to do anything about it."

  Teve went to speak, but the commodore silenced him again.

  "Do you have a problem, Sergeant? I would hate for this conversation to take a turn."

  He felt his fists clench tight as he thought about Mish and the UEF soldiers on Earth. If one half of the new Zeal fleet hit the blue planet, the UEF would have little air support with every MAF pilot off-world defending Mars. To top things off, all the enhanced soldiers like Teve were either dying or were on board MAF battle carriers. The devastation on the home world would reach an entirely new level.

  Garcia took her eyes off him and left the control room. Teve jumped to his feet and clutched his head with his pincer-like grip. He yelled out loud and grabbed the seat he had been strapped to and launched it clean across the room into the thick glass that observed the core. The chair bounced off the acrylic surface without so much as a dent before it clattered on the floor.

  As he stared at the giant blue sphere that powered the entire ship, Teve couldn't help but feel powerless despite his abilities. He was the single bridge between humanity and the Zeal yet the connection he had only flowed in one direction.

  As he was about to give up, he realized Garcia had left the device behind in her haste to warn Command. He moved up to the machine and decided it was time to stop messing around. He lifted the box up close to his face and took a breath in before he opened the container.

  A bright light overwhelmed him as he fell to the floor and went back to the world that existed entirely in his mind.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  "The ship is now decelerating," Nicole said to Porter. "According to this, we are changing course back to Mars under a new directive."

  "New directive?" Porter asked as he stood from Nicole's fold-down bunk. He slid his shirt on and buttoned up his fatigues before walking over to see the confused look on his girlfriend's face.

  "This can't be good. We shouldn't be heading back to Mars. There won't be enough time to reach the rally point in the belt."

  Shaking his head as he read the order on Nicole's tablet for the third time, Porter didn't know what to say. "Why would they be shifting our defense strategy now? You should find Garcia and see what's up."

  A notification chimed on the tablet. It was a priority one ping from the commodore ordering Cannon to find her in the control room attached to Deck C for an emergency meeting.

  "Looks like I'm going to find out sooner than later," she said.

  "Wait. Why is Garcia not with Teve working on the data stream?" Porter asked.

  "I was starting to wonder the same thing," Nicole said. "Maybe they found something."

  "Yeah, maybe. Should I come?" Porter asked.

  Nicole shook her head and gave him a quick glance that told him Garcia would flip out if he came along for the ride. "Sorry. She's got it marked down as a private meeting."

  "That's a bit odd, isn't it?" he asked.

  "It's not the first time, but usually these meetings are unconventional at best. Garcia doesn't like to do anything by the book. I swear some days she does this to mess with me."

  "Sounds like the commodore. Anyway, I should probably find Teve and see how he's doing. Where do you suppose he'd be?"

  Nicole tapped through the tablet with fury, only half paying attention to Porter. "Uh, sorry? What did you say?"

  "Never mind. I can see you've got your hands full. I'll find Teve. Good luck with Garcia." Porter headed for the door and slapped the open button once he reached the panel. He glanced back at Nicole and realized she still had her face buried in the tablet.

  "Let me know if anything crazy is about to happen," he said. "I'd love to get through one day without something weird ruining everything."

  Nicole looked up from the screen. "Will do. I'll see you later."

  Porter tapped the
frame of the bulkhead with a smile and turned to leave.

  "Hey, Porter," she called after him. He stuck his head back inside to see Nicole's warm smile greet him.

  "We'll get through this, right? I mean, we have to. We've come too far to fail now."

  Porter saw a thick worry line crease across her forehead. He moved back into the room without thinking and stepped over to Nicole, wrapping his arms around her the second he could.

  "It's okay. We'll beat this. I don't know how, but we'll find a way through this mess, all right?" He let her go for a moment to meet her eyes. She came close to letting it all out but stopped all her fears flowing through at once. He wanted to tell her to unload everything and accept the situation, but the release of feelings was a luxury none of them could afford at a time like this.

  "Give Garcia hell for me. I'll see you soon." He turned away and left before she said anymore. She needed to focus on her work. Handling Garcia was a delicate and necessary job—one Porter struggled with.

  After a short walk in no particular direction, he headed for the mess to see if Teve was getting some chow. He found a mix of SF soldiers and MAF pilots each eating on opposite sides of the area, both groups keeping a firm eye on one another.

  Porter moved on and tried the rest of the common areas on board the ship. He had no way of pinging Teve as neither one of them held any equipment to communicate with. Garcia should have given them their gear back, but then again it was possible she didn't want Teve or Porter to have any form of access to the ship's network.

  When Porter ran out of places to search, he headed for the core control room to check if there were any sign of Teve having left the section. He was surprised to find no techs had returned to monitor the core, especially since Garcia had finished using Teve's strange new ability for the moment. It took him a moment too long to realize what he was looking at when he found a body on the floor.

  "Teve?" Porter whispered to himself. He charged over to his downed brother, seeing his neck slack on the floor as he lay on his side. Porter checked to see if he was breathing and detected a faint breath. He also found a pulse and decided CPR was unnecessary, so he attempted to rouse Teve from whatever had knocked him out.

  "Teve, wake up," he yelled as he shook his shoulders over and over. It was then that he noticed the device about a meter away on the floor, open and exposed to the world. "Oh, crap."

  Porter tried Teve again but found him unresponsive. He cast his eyes back over the alien device, half expecting it to start attacking his brain again. He had only just gotten rid of the first headache the object gave him. "What is going on?" he said as he stared around the room looking for help. He could try yelling, but the thickness of the compartment would dull his voice to barely a whisper even with the bulkhead wide open. The dangerous core was intentionally kept as far as possible from the next section of the ship.

  "Come on, Teve, you need to wake up, okay?" Porter tried slapping him a few times on the cheek, but Teve's skin absorbed the attack. "Damn nanites," he yelled.

  His eyes fell back to the alien device. It hadn't harmed him yet, so he decided to get a closer look. He reached out and moved his arm toward the open lid of the receiver. The complete object was unlike anything Porter had laid his eyes upon. There were rigid lines intricately woven over the entire item and strange markings he had seen on board the Cyclones that looked nothing like writing. Seeing as the Zeal didn't have eyes—at least not in the human sense—he failed to understand why they would have anything visual in their possession.

  "This is so stupid," Porter said as he came close to touching the lid. "If this thing kills me—" Porter reached the cover with closed eyes and waited for the pain to flow. He slowly opened his eyes and realized nothing had happened. He tilted his head with a twisted brow and picked up the entire unit. With no regard, he touched the device with his bare finger and was amazed that no pain stabbed into his skull. It was either switched off somehow or broken.

  Porter placed the unit on the ground and glanced back to Teve. It didn't take him long to work out that someone had intentionally exposed Teve to the device in full.

  "Garcia," he let out. "I'm going to kill you."

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  The waters of the lake lapped ever so gently against the edge of the pier as the ducks swam in single file in front of Teve. He sat on the side of the landing, letting his long legs swing free as he absorbed the serene beauty of the cold air. Mish leaned on him by his side, lightly running her hand over his chest. None of this was real, of course, as he was back inside the world his mind had built. Why it kept taking him to the lake house was unclear, but he didn't really care.

  "We should be getting back," Mish said as her head rested on his shoulder. "It's late."

  "What are you talking about? The sun is up high in the—" Teve cut himself off when he saw the time of day transition to dusk. "Right. Not real. I'm not really here," he said closing his eyes for a moment.

  "Come on, Teve. We have to go," Mish said as she got up and tugged at his arm. He complied, knowing deep down this place was not one he controlled. This wasn't a lucid dream or a playground of mental creation he could manipulate at will. It simply existed in his head, buried somewhere within the nanites X had altered back on Earth.

  Mish ran ahead, leaving Teve behind as she headed for the lake house. He tried to keep up, but she moved away quicker than his legs would allow him to travel. The typical abilities he had come to take for granted over the last year didn't seem to have any impact in this world. It was like he was his usual self but caught in a delusion.

  When he found the entry to the cabin, he pushed the aging, heavy door open to find himself in another world. Flames leaped out at him from the city of Los Angeles where he and Mish had spent most of the war fighting. The center was drenched in fire and destruction as Teve witnessed one of the first battles he and Mish fought against the Zeal under the umbrella of the UEF. All around him, transports fell from the sky as the UEF experienced its first major failure at the hands of the Zeal defense systems scattered all over the occupied city.

  Death and chaos rained down and littered the world with the corpses of desperate men and women trying to reclaim their lost planet from the invaders who gave them no quarter.

  "Quite a sight, isn't it?" X asked from beside him.

  Teve swooped around and moved a few steps away from the hybrid. "Why did you bring me here? This is ancient history."

  X inched forward with his neck craned toward the nearest transport falling in flame before it slammed into the ground, no doubt killing everyone on board instantly. "You've come a long way since this day. We had you beaten with your backs against the wall. You could have given up and accepted your fate, but you refused to die."

  Teve moved in front of X and blocked his view of the battlefield. "I don't want a history lesson, X; I want answers. What did you do to me in Atlanta? Why can I interact with that thing the MAF found?"

  A single hand came up and stopped Teve's questions from flowing. "These things are not important now, T. We don't have long before they arrive."

  "You think I don't know that your buddies are coming? I've seen that fleet with my own two eyes in the form of raw data. The Zeal have ships that will crush us without effort. Even if they splinter off into two groups, we can't stop them. In less than a week, we'll all be dead, and Earth and Mars will be next in line for annihilation."

  X smiled as his razors edged out of his fractured skin. "So pessimistic. Where is your faith in humanity?"

  Teve shook his head as he half chuckled to stifle his building rage. "Our faith has been tested more times than necessary, thanks to your kind. I'm not going to pretend any longer that we have a shot at beating this new fleet."

  "You'll find a way," X blurted out.

  "What?"

  "You heard me. You'll find a way to stop them. There's more here at stake than losing the last battle before humanity gets absorbed into the fold. There's only one option: victo
ry."

  Teve felt himself stumble over the imagined rubble beneath his feet. "I don't understand. Why would you be telling me this? You're a hybrid, and not just any hybrid, either. I'm pretty sure you're one of the leading hybrids on Earth running the show."

  X dismissed Teve's thoughts. "I told you, I am merely a tool in all this. When the time comes, I will be made obsolete and disposed of. Now you must focus. When you wake up, the Zeal will be on your doorstep, ready to strike. This will be humanity's final test."

  "Final test? What do you mean?"

  X grimaced as he placed both hands behind his back and casually strolled away from the flames.

  "Hey, I'm talking to you."

  "Find a way, T," X said over his blade-covered shoulder. Without another word, he faded into the shadows and vanished. Teve spun around several times as the world began to collapse in on itself. He started to regain consciousness as the world of fire disappeared and sent him back to reality.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Porter had managed to find a comm fixed to one of the walls to call for help. He immediately radioed Nicole and accused Garcia of harming his brother. The commodore overheard the conversation and came barreling down to the core with a few armed guards to deal with Porter's claims.

  "What did you do to him?" Porter shouted at Garcia as Nicole held him back.

  "Nothing, you moron. I've been away from this room for hours now. When I left, your brother was awake."

  "Bullshit," Porter said. "You did this to him. You wanted to know more. You didn't care what happened to him."

  "Stand down, sir," one of Garcia's guards said as they each trained their rifles on Porter. It didn't seem to matter to them that Nicole was in the way.