Solfleet: The Call of Duty

by Smith, Glenn

  No, he wouldn’t be made a fool of. Instead, he took his dishes into the kitchen and placed them in the dishwasher, then picked up the old General Norman Schwarzkopf biography he’d been engrossed in throughout his convalescence and went back out onto the deck to read.

  And just maybe to catch another glimpse of his new neighbor.

  Chapter 42

  Except for a couple of bathroom breaks and the occasional trip to the kitchen for a snack or a drink, Dylan had spent the entire afternoon outside, reading and basking in the comfortably warm late summer sun. Not long before dusk he’d finally set the book aside and gone out for a quiet stroll through the garden, the only place where the multitude of sweet floral fragrances were strong enough to overpower the forest’s mint-laced, pine-like aroma. His thoughts had quickly turned to Marissa again—for a guy who wasn’t in love he sure thought a lot about the woman he wasn’t in love with, he’d recognized—and despite how awkward their previous conversation had been, he’d decided to give her another call, just to tell her that he was thinking about her and to wish her well. But her mother had answered that call and had explained that her daughter had decided to put her military life behind her and start over, and that she wanted no further contact with her former comrades. Dylan had pushed to talk with her anyway, if only just to wish her well and to say good-bye, but her mother had refused to put her on and had then disconnected without another word.

  Another friendship had ended.

  Soon afterward, when the sun had finally sunk behind the treetops and the sky had begun to darken, he’d fixed himself a quick dinner. Then he’d gone back out onto the deck to enjoy the fresh night air.

  The air had cooled somewhat since he came back outside but remained just warm enough to feel comfortable when it was still, but from time to time a cool breeze blew gently up through the trees, coming off the surface of the lake several hundred meters away, bringing a chill to the air and carrying with it the crackling and popping of someone’s campfire, and the quiet hum of a far off power boat’s engine.

  * * *

  Even from inside its dimly lit and slightly chilly passenger cabin, Dylan could barely hear the subdued whisper of the small vessel’s engines with their tactical noise dampeners fully engaged, and no one had spoken much more than a few words in the hours since departure, so the flight had been nearly as quiet as it had been long. But that was normal for a combat mission. There was something very humbling about the very real possibility of not living to see another sunrise that tended to plunge even the bravest of Marines into quiet reflection.

  He’d spent that time thinking back over his career.

  What the hell was he doing in a Ranger unit?

  The overhead lighting changed from its normal soft blue-white to a not too bright blood red. “Coming up on insertion point,” the pilot announced over the intercom.

  “On your feet,” the lieutenant called out from the front of the cabin.

  Equipment check. Routine. Thumbs up.

  “Man the capsules.”

  Routine.

  Amber changed to green. The drop. The countdown.

  Routine.

  No injuries.

  Ready.

  He gave the order to move out.

  At first their trek was slow and precarious, through a forest as thick and as black as road tar. The dense overhead canopy kept the starlight at bay, and without it their night-vision displays were useless. They traveled in relative silence using the faint sounds of each other’s careful footfalls to maintain their proper intervals, because bunching up could be a fatal mistake.

  Hours passed.

  Moonlight.

  Night-vision displays. Without bothering to give the word—he knew his troops didn’t have to be told—he flipped his NVD into place over his eye. Through its dark amber-green lens, the forest took on an eerie, haunted appearance, and a feeling of foreboding suddenly filled the depths of his very soul. That feeling grew more intense as they drew steadily closer to their objective, but he kept that feeling to himself.

  A brilliant, blinding light suddenly flooded the forest.

  * * *

  The sudden luminescence startled Dylan back to the present. Across the courtyard the girl’s living room lights had just come on and her curtains were standing wide open. He hadn’t even realized he was gazing in that direction. He sat and watched for a few moments but perceived no movement inside. Then, driven by his curious, albeit suspicious nature, he went inside, picked up his binocs, and switched off the lights.

  He focused on the front door of the girl’s apartment just as she stepped inside, and her sultry beauty instantly captivated him. She was wearing a black mini-skirt—was that real leather?—and matching jacket with a low-cut cherry-red blouse and black knee boots. Her hair was swept back on the sides and loosely braided down her back. Two or three glittering gold necklaces, several bracelets, and a pair of sparkling crystalline earrings completed her trendy outfit. Dylan had thought she was attractive before, but now? He couldn’t believe her uniform had hidden so much.

  She closed the door behind her and punched what he assumed was her locking code into the wall panel, then pulled off her boots and set them in the closet. Then she headed toward her bedroom, and Dylan’s gaze eagerly followed.

  The bedroom lights came up as she walked in, casting her shadow against the curtains—an indistinct silhouette that quickly sharpened and then vanished an instant later when she threw the curtains open. She pulled off her jacket and tossed it onto the bed, then stepped over to her dresser and took off her jewelry—including a pair of bright golden barrettes that Dylan hadn’t even seen—one piece at a time, carefully arranging each one in its proper place. She ran her fingers through her hair and shook it loose, then started to undress.

  Now that he’d seen she was safe and everything was all right, Dylan knew that he should stop watching her. Despite the curious fact that she’d opened her curtains, she had the same right to privacy as anyone else and to continue spying on her would be wrong. But as she stepped out of her skirt and started to unbutton her blouse, something—whether it was curiosity, appreciation of her beauty, or just plain ordinary lust he couldn’t guess, nor did he dwell on it—something compelled him to continue his unlawful surveillance. Probably the lust, he admitted to himself. He hadn’t been with a woman in weeks.

  She opened her blouse and slipped it from her shoulders, revealing sensuous black lace lingerie, then stepped up to the full-length mirror next to her dresser. She twisted back and forth from left to right as far as she could without taking her eyes off of her reflection. Then, after a few seconds of that, she reached up behind her and unfastened her bra, then turned her back to the window as she slipped it off and headed into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

  Dylan set his binocs aside, sat back, and rested his head against the back of the couch with a sigh. His heart was pounding. This young woman, whoever she was, was beautiful to be sure and certainly not very shy. But what was it that had reduced him to spying on her through the windows? Why were women and sex on his mind so much lately? Had he really grown so lonely so quickly or was he just so incredibly bored, being stuck on medical leave for so long, that his mind—his conscious mind at least—couldn’t find anything else with which to occupy itself?

  Maybe he should just go over there and introduce himself.

  Maybe he should.

  Maybe...

  * * *

  They’d gained entry into the poorly lit commander’s office and were busy grabbing all the documents they could find and sealing them into water-proof/fire-proof envelopes.

  “Looks like that’s everything, Sarge,” Marissa said. “I’ve emptied every drawer or cabinet I can find.”

  “Same here.”

  —He never found anything more.

  “Good. Then what do you say we get the hell out of...” She fell silent, turned, stared into the blackness.

  “What is it?” he quietly asked, rai
sing his rifle. “What’s wrong?”

  —He knew what it was.

  “I thought I heard something in there.”

  —Please, God, not again. Don’t put her through it again.

  “Like what?”

  “I’m not sure. Like...someone crying maybe?”

  No more questions. They listened. A faint moan.

  —He knew what it was.

  They stepped into the darkness.

  He found something. A door.

  —She was in there.

  Another moan, from inside. No latch. The other side. He found the button.

  They went inside.

  —There she was.

  Small, slender, dark haired, she lay stretched out on some kind of surgical bed next to a series of machines, her eyes rolled back in her head. Stripped naked, beaten, perhaps tortured. Her badly skinned hands were strapped to a metal bar above her head. Her legs, thighs badly bruised, were spread wide and strapped to the sides of the bed frame just below her knees. Tubes ran from one of the machines, feeding fluids into her arms. Small sensors fastened to her head, beneath her breasts, and over her heart. Her belly, swollen as though she were pregnant...

  —Inhuman.

  Bleeding heavily from her torn vagina.

  —Poor, innocent girl.

  He called Doc.

  —Doc would never show up.

  That familiar demonic hiss filled the room...

  —filled his entire world—

  ...and once more, before he could react, a heavy stream of thick florescent bile-yellow fluid sprayed in from the darkness and spattered over Marissa’s face and chest. She dropped her rifle and clutched her face in her hands, screaming at the top of her lungs as she collapsed to the floor, writhing in pain.

  —Again.

  “Marissa!” He raised his rifle to the doorway and fired blindly into the darkness as he rushed toward her, but a long and immensely powerful whip suddenly lashed out and knocked him back as it ripped the rifle from his hands. In the same fluid motion it struck Marissa square across her chest as she tried to climb back to her feet and knocked her back against the far wall. She dropped back to the floor.

  —That always happened, and it had happened again. Why did he always react the same way?

  It emerged from the darkness.

  —The serpent! The Prince of Darkness! The Devil itself, risen from the fiery abyss!

  The Beast rose up. The Beast slithered slowly toward him.

  He backed farther away.

  —He knew he wouldn’t escape. He never escaped.

  He drew his sidearm.

  —He knew it would knock his sidearm away.

  The Beast dodged everything he managed to throw at it.

  —He’d never been able to hit it.

  The Beast spat—burned his arms but missed his face.

  Lucky...but he’d left himself venerable.

  The Beast grabbed him up in its long tail, which it swiftly coiled around his mid-section. It lifted him off the floor.

  —He’d fallen for it again.

  The air gushed from his lungs. He couldn’t draw a breath. One by one his ribs began to crack. Tiny sparks of light began dancing like fireflies in the darkness before his tearing eyes. He was going to die.

  —Again.

  Gunfire. The Beast dropped him to the floor.

  More gunfire, but not for long. A crash. Silence.

  The Beast lifted him again. He fought against it. He kicked. The Beast threw him down again, but not for long.

  Combat knife.

  The Beast pulled him in. He opened its gullet.

  The doomed creature dropped him into the expanding pool of its cold, thick blood.

  Blood. It bled. It wasn’t the Beast after all!

  The flapping of its gullet tissue. The gurgling of its gushing blood.

  It lay there, twitching, silently waiting to die.

  Excruciating pain.

  He was dying.

  Someone moaned. “Marissa!” He crawled to her and turned her over. The rancid stench of vomit. His own acidy bile burned his throat.

  Her face, badly discolored. Her eyes, nearly swollen shut. The front of her TAC-vest had dissolved completely away, and what little remained of her battle-dress tunic was torn wide open. A deep cut ran high across her burned and bloodied chest, but it didn’t appear to be bleeding anymore.

  —Always the same.

  “I’m still with you. How bad is it?”

  “I don’t think it’s too serious.”

  A lie.

  Conversation. No time.

  He was dying.

  They had to rescue the consort.

  Weapons.

  He helped Marissa to her feet.

  “Your arms are burned.”

  “The bastard spat at me.”

  Free the girl. Help her up. He gave her his shirt.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Fire in the hole!”

  “Ortiz is out of it. She’ll be taking...”

  —He should have expected it by now.

  A huge explosion suddenly rocked the main hall. The shock wave knocked the three of them to the ground.

  He jumped up. No pain. Marissa and the girl. Veshtonn!

  —They always came.

  Combat. Reinforcements. Shin collapsed motionless to the dirt.

  —Poor girl.

  Something burned his thigh.

  He was hit.

  His right shoulder exploded in a burst of searing agony so intense that he couldn’t even scream as he stumbled backward to the ground.

  He was hit again. Badly.

  “Sergeant Graves is down!”

  The pain faded to numbness. He rolled onto his stomach, retrieved his rifle, and staggered to his feet, determined to stay in the fight.

  His head suddenly snapped back and his knees buckled. He collapsed.

  He sat up.

  Warm blood flowed into his eye and down over his cheek and neck.

  He was hit again. Very badly.

  Everything slowed down and the world around him began to spin out of control.

  Idiot! Standing up and walking toward the enemy like that!

  —Time to die. Served him right for being so stupid.

  The world faded until all was darkness.

  * * *

  “No!” he shrieked as he bolted awake, straining his ribs as he sat up, his eyes wide open and his head throbbing violently.

  After a moment he realized he was safe at home, not lying face down on the battlefield, dying in a pool of his own blood. He was sitting on the edge of his couch, clutching a small cushion tightly to his chest. He drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly, then set the cushion aside and wiped the sweat from his brow. Then he got up and went into the kitchen for a drink of water and a Liferin tablet.

  He’d fought Sulaini before, but prior to that battle he’d never faced off against any of their regular Army troops. But he’d known from having seen plenty of pictures what their combat uniforms looked like, so he’d been somewhat prepared when the C.U.F. compound suddenly filled with dozens of them. They were a known entity. They were familiar. But the Kree-Veshtonn blood-warriors were another thing entirely. What had they been doing there? The Veshtonn had been forced out of the system four years ago. Except for the ones he’d fought against with the Marines from the Tripoli he’d never even seen one of them up close before, and those ones had been almost totally obscured by their helmets and suits of armor. He’d only ever seen fuzzy pictures and heard sketchy descriptions of what they really looked like—two meters tall and more, dark green and brown, scaly-skinned, vaguely humanoid in structure but more reptilian in appearance, with an insectoid carapace, long skinny tails, and fan-like membranes on the sides of their necks. All accurate descriptions, but nothing he’d ever seen or heard had done their true ugliness justice.

  And what about the creature whose appearance had already faded from his memory yet again? He’d known without a doubt for mo
re than a week now that it wasn’t real. But still it came to him every time he went to sleep. Why wouldn’t it leave him alone?

  He glanced up at the clock on the wall and was surprised to see that it was only 21:15 hours, according to how the Earth colonists and Solfleet forces measured local time, but he decided to go to bed anyway. He needed all the rest he could get.

  He gulped down his water and set the empty glass on the counter, then started toward his bedroom, but when he happened to glance outside as he passed the sliding glass door, he noticed movement in the girl’s apartment.

  He stopped short. A split second of indecision. His mind, his morality, told him to fight the temptation to spy on her again—to ignore it and just go to bed. But the memory of what he’d seen earlier enticed every other fiber of his being and he promptly chose to give in once more.

  Chose to give in? Yes. It was a choice—a choice that he felt ashamed of even as he acted on it, sitting down on the couch and picking up his binocs.

  She was standing in front of her mirror again, brushing out her lustrous hair, wearing a satiny pink bathrobe, short enough so that every time she raised her arms Dylan caught a glimpse of her bright white panties. She brushed over and over and over for several minutes before she finally put down her brush, gave her hair one last flip, and then turned and opened her sliding door.

  She stepped out onto her deck and untied her robe as she approached the railing, allowing it to blow open in the breeze to reveal her firm, bare breasts. She raised her arms and ran her fingers through her hair, then stretched them out to her sides, arched her back, and let her robe billow freely behind her in the breeze as she gazed up at the stars.

  It was as if she knew he was watching her and was posing for him. He couldn’t begin to imagine why she would do that, but he certainly approved. He gazed without blinking at her beautiful, curvaceous body. Standing there, awash in the moonlight’s soft glow, she reminded him of a portrait of the mythological Cirran goddess of beauty he’d once seen.

  She dropped her arms to her sides and let her robe slip from her shoulders and fall to the deck, then rested her hands on the railing. But only a few moments later, obviously chilled by the cool evening air, she picked it up and went back inside and closed and locked the door behind her. She draped it over the back of her couch and disappeared into her kitchen. Then, moments later, she emerged carrying a tall ice-filled drink, grabbed a book off the wall shelf, and stretched out on her couch to read.