The Tide_Ghost Fleet

by Anthony J Melchiorri

Becker and Fischer looked intently between Lauren and Navid.

  All thoughts of Glenn and the Huntress suddenly seemed like nothing more than dreams again. Lauren wanted to join her team, back where she felt most comfortable. Back where she was needed to keep the Hunters healthy and safe, back where the labs called her.

  But here, she and Navid had the potential to change the course of this war. The answer seemed obvious at first. She should stay. She should volunteer to toil away in the lab until they’d eradicated every goddamn Skull left in the world. Still, something ugly sat at the back of her mind. She had seen the dark side of biological weapons. The pain they caused, both intentional and unintentional. Even the most effective and lifesaving of medicines had unintended and potentially devastating side effects. A bioweapon that somehow could eradicate wide swathes of the Skull population? It sounded far too good to be true.

  Biology was a fickle and unpredictable mistress.

  “So then,” Becker said, “what will it be?”

  ***

  Five assets lost. Mission accomplished.

  That would’ve been Meredith’s report to Langley, had she still been pushing papers at the CIA headquarters. The nature of her relationship with the Hunters, as well as the CIA’s directives to eliminate biological and chemical weapon threats as discreetly as possible, dictated that brevity was preferable to detail. Back then, that’s all she would’ve really known about the Hunters’ success.

  She had never pressed for details. For plausible deniability’s sake, it was better that way.

  She sighed. A light misting of sea air caressed her face, and the scarred flesh where her ear had once been tingled.

  Five assets lost.

  Those words said so little. But now that she had spent time on the Huntress and even spilled her own blood with the crew, they rang dark and haunting. They echoed in her mind like a church bell in an abandoned town, a melancholy sound amid desolate ruin. Those words meant five funerals. Five fewer people to fight for the side of good, which seemed to be an ever-dwindling resource. Five human beings who had given everything to protect a world that would never know about their sacrifice.

  She had lost five friends—five family members.

  Meredith’s fingers tightened around the cold, wet metal gunwale. The hollow sound of hammer strikes and the whine of heavy-duty drill bits biting into steel rose behind her. The ship was damaged, wounded. It would never be the same after this mission.

  Likewise, the crew wouldn’t be the same. They’d lost so many people during this war. And still they fought on.

  Meredith inhaled deeply, relishing the fresh air. Out here, deep in the Adriatic, she no longer smelled the carrion odor that wafted from the Skulls. Out here they had a chance to rebuild and remember.

  A quick glance at her watch told Meredith it was time to go below. Although they’d be leaving five people behind, there were dozens more who needed her—perhaps especially the one waiting for her now. Despite her aching muscles, she strode down the ladder and into the training gym.

  She said nothing when she approached her opponent. Younger and sprier, her sparring partner held all the physical advantages. But Meredith still had greater knowledge and experience.

  Kara lunged in early for a takedown. Meredith rewarded her overeagerness with a swift counter that landed the young woman on her back. No sooner had Kara’s spine hit the mat than she was back up and going straight at Meredith again. Over and over they clashed. Kara made slight adjustments at each attempted takedown, which Meredith noticed and adjusted for in kind.

  But Kara was a fast learner, and she did not give up. Meredith expected no less from Dom’s oldest daughter.

  Then it finally happened. Kara went low for a lunge, and Meredith grabbed the young woman’s shoulder to counter. But Kara twisted at the last second. Using Meredith’s momentum against her, Kara swept Meredith off her feet and sent her to the mat.

  The shock of the impact sent a fiery wave of pain through Meredith’s back. Still she couldn’t help smiling as Kara offered her a hand to help her up.

  “About time,” Meredith said.

  “Even a blind pig finds an apple every once in a while.” Kara brushed the sweat off her forehead. “Persistence pays off.”

  “It does,” Meredith said. Kara gestured as if to invite her to another round, but Meredith waved her off and sat on a bench. She dabbed her forehead with a towel. “You’re no blind pig, Kara. You’re better than that. You’ve been practicing.”

  Kara sat beside her and chugged from a water bottle. “I tried teaching Sadie some of what you showed me while you all were away. She’s been less than enthusiastic. Maggie always tags along, and whenever she sees us sparring, she gets worried we’re actually fighting.”

  “Good thing she wasn’t in here today to see you take that beating.”

  Kara grinned. “No kidding. She would’ve freaked.”

  Meredith held her hand out, and Kara passed her the water bottle. “I heard what you did for Alden.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. That was pretty damn brave.”

  “Someone had to help,” Kara said.

  “But you were the one that did. In the middle of a fire, no less. You should’ve seen your father’s face when he found out. He couldn’t decide whether he was supposed to be pissed that the crew let you throw yourself in there like that or be proud that you did it.”

  Kara laughed. “I can only imagine.”

  “And I hear you’re going to become an engineer now?”

  “Alden says I’ve got a few years of study ahead of me if I want to do it. It’s going to be hard, but I’ll try. I need to do something to help out around here.”

  “Nothing worthwhile is easy.”

  Meredith wondered what the future held for Kara and the rest of the ship. Maybe Kara would have more than enough time aboard the Huntress to learn all Alden had to teach her. For the young woman’s sake, she hoped not. She wanted Kara to be able to return to the mainland, to have a chance at living something like a normal life.

  “You’d make a fine engineer,” Meredith said. “At the CIA, we recruited the best, and from experience, those were the most tenacious of the lot. The ones that weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty to root out a problem. When faced with a challenge, they ran at it headlong.” She winked at Kara. “After the proper training of course.”

  “Alden’s letting me borrow some of his books on ship maintenance, plus some basic engineering texts. I didn’t spend much time in college, but at least some of my science courses are proving useful now.”

  “You know what, kid? You’re going to be okay.” Meredith glanced at her watch. It was about time to rejoin the others in the electronics workshop. She patted Kara’s back. “Seriously, what you did for Alden was a great thing.”

  “You would’ve done the same.”

  “I’m proud of you, Kara. You are, as Frank would say, a regular badass.”

  Kara smiled at Meredith. “If I am, it’s only because I’ve got a great role model.”

  ***

  Dom sat at the table in the middle of the electronics workshop. In front of him was an open can of the vile green engine coolant that Samantha called an energy drink. Meredith, Thomas, Chao, and Samantha held their own sweating cans as they sat around him. Miguel, O’Neil, Glenn, and Jenna had joined them.

  “I’m not great with words, so I’m going to do the best I can.” Dom cleared his throat. “Samantha, there aren’t many people I know that can claim to have saved millions of lives. I’m not sure anyone will fully appreciate what you did. Whatever happens after we burn the Oni Agent off this planet, I will never forget it, and I will be forever grateful.”

  “Just doing my job,” Samantha said. The normally cocky tech actually looked embarrassed at being singled out, even with the small group. “Besides, it’s not like I was risking my ass in the field. All I did was implement a bit of code on some devices.”

  “A bit of code on some devi
ces?” Dom asked. “Don’t sell yourself short. A lifetime of training and study—not to mention whatever the hell is in these drinks—got you to where you are today. There are a whole lot of people in Europe that are glad you chose to go nearsighted from working at computers all day.” He raised his can. “To Samantha, a tech prodigy and a damn hero. I am so thankful you are on our side.”

  “Hear, hear,” Thomas said gruffly, raising his can to meet Dom’s. The others clinked their drinks before taking a sip.

  Dom winced but choked the stuff down. He held out the can. “Samantha, I’ll let you finish the rest.”

  “Good,” she said. “As much as I appreciate you all sharing in my guilty pleasure, I don’t want this stuff going to waste.”

  “Chao,” Dom said, “thank you for designing those transmitters. Sometimes I think we take your genius for granted, but those little devices saved us here in Croatia, along with the Congo and Morocco... and well before the outbreak, too.”

  “My pleasure,” Chao said with a nod.

  “And to you, old fogey,” Dom said, turning toward Thomas. “Your timing is, as ever, impeccable.”

  “I always say,” Thomas said, “if you won’t let me get a bite of the action in the field, I’ll make a little action aboard the ship.”

  “Oh, you always say that?” Meredith asked with a sly grin.

  “Always since now.” Thomas rolled his cigar between his fingers.

  Dom laughed then pointed to the cigar. “You going to light that one?”

  “You know, I almost did.” Thomas pocketed it again. “But I made a vow to myself that I wouldn’t smoke another one until the Oni Agent was gone and we caught the bastards responsible for it. And I’m a man of my word.”

  “You’re going to be without nicotine for a while,” Samantha said. “Unless we find something really juicy from the data Mokri left behind.”

  Dom wished he could disagree with Samantha. But there was no mistaking how far they had to go before they or any government left in this world could declare anything close to a victory against the Oni Agent and Spitkovsky.

  Taking back the Karlstad had been easy with the German, Irish, and Portuguese lending their support. The few Iranians aboard gave up readily, seeing that they were absolutely outnumbered and having already lost their admiral. They weren’t like the Hybrids, who had to be hunted down until the very last one of them was riddled with bullets. Based off the unencrypted communication logs they’d pulled off the Karlstad, Mokri had been an important figure in the FGL. Dom hoped Spitkovsky would be feeling that loss.

  The FGL’s radical plan to take out Europe had been stopped. At least for now. The attack on Washington, DC, had never materialized. They weren’t sure whether the planned invasion had been a feint all along or if the failure of the nuclear operation had thwarted the FGL’s plans. Either way, Spitkovsky knew Dom and the rest of the world were onto him now. He’d successfully thrown them off his trail, even if for only a little while.

  Spitkovsky’s ghost fleet was still out there, even if it hadn’t made it to DC. There were still hordes of Skulls and the threat of new versions of the Oni Agent as the FGL looked for new ways to undermine the survival of the human civilization.

  “Samantha’s right,” Dom said. “This war isn’t over. Not even close to it. But I can tell you what will happen. I don’t know when, and I don’t yet know how, but I do know the outcome. We will win.”

  Dom was absolutely certain they would. If they could stop a nuclear war, then they could stop Spitkovsky. They would stop Spitkovsky.

  “No doubt about it,” Meredith said. “I’m behind you one hundred percent.”

  “Count me in,” O’Neil said. “Nothing would make me happier than showing these bastards what they created.” He tapped his claws against each other.

  “Chief, I never doubted you,” Miguel said.

  “Damn straight, brother,” Glenn said.

  Dom soaked in the confidence of his crew. After everything they’d been through, after losing Spencer and seeing his crew damn near fall apart, he took reassurance in their resolve. The road ahead wouldn’t be easy, and he knew they would each face their own demons and doubts on the path to victory, but they would be victorious in the end.

  There was still a lot of work to be done. The ship had a goddamn hole in it—and so did Dom. After paying his respects to the fallen crew members, an invisible weight had been added to the burden he’d been carrying since the beginning of the battle against the Oni Agent.

  That was why victory was the only option. Only by seeing Spitkovsky and his work destroyed would the sacrifices of the Hunters be worth the cost.

  A chirp sounded from Samantha’s computer. She jolted upright in her seat, almost spilling her energy drink. “The decryption program’s done!”

  Dom took a deep breath. It was time. “Then let’s see where we’re going next.”

  The end of Book 7 in The Tide Series

  Thank you for reading The Tide: Ghost Fleet! I’m thankful for every one of you that have followed along the Hunters’ adventures so far. You’ve made this series well worth writing, and the emails and messages I’ve received from readers truly help me to keep motivated while writing the next book. The series will continue in Book 8. If you would like to know when the next Tide book comes out, you can sign up for my newsletter here: http://bit.ly/ajmlist

  You’ll also receive a free story, Fatal Injection, for signing up.

  I love to hear from my readers. If you want to get in touch, there are a number of ways to reach me.

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/anthonyjmelchiorri

  Email: ajm@anthonyjmelchiorri.com

  Website: http://www.anthonyjmelchiorri.com

  Need something to read while you wait for the next Tide book? What follows is an excerpt from Eternal Frontier, the first book in The Eternal Frontier series.

  Purple and green waves of plasma coursed around the hull of the SRES Argo as it exited hyperspace. A long, metallic groan resonated through the ship. Planets loomed into existence out of the darkness of space, and a fiery star greeted the crew, welcoming them to a new solar system. Lieutenant Commander Tag Brewer had joined this exploratory mission with the Solar Republic of Earth’s Navy precisely to witness such a sight. He had spent long nights dreaming of traveling among the stars. The allure of discovering the undiscovered, exploring the wild abandon of the universe, stepping foot on a land that had never borne witness to the human race, and the potential of contacting new life on distant planets evoked a heart-thumping excitement in Tag that could be rivaled by no other experience.

  And he was missing it.

  As the chief medical officer, he bore the responsibility of carrying the ship’s biomedical science mission forward. The urge to fulfill his duty called to him at every waking hour. Now was no exception.

  Tag sat at a lab bench in the medical bay and used two fingers to gesture on a holoscreen. His movements manipulated a remote-controlled microscope behind the protective barrier cordoning off the laboratory. The remote-controlled scope allowed him to monitor his ongoing experiments in real time while reducing the risk of contaminating the cells and tissues growing inside the refrigerator-sized incubators in the next room. So instead of studying the gleaming stars outside the Argo, he was stuck looking at the microscale world contained in tiny plastic dishes.

  He wondered if he would have a chance to study any living cells from the planet they were set to visit. Studying new life...that would make these long hours in the lab worth it. That would make his entire career worth it.

  Tag pushed aside those distracting thoughts and willed himself to focus on the scope’s view. Various numbers marched across the holoscreen to report the current temperature and humidity within the incubators. Another scrolling set of numbers reported the minute voltage fluctuations taking place in a dish full of neural tissue. Tag couldn’t help but grin at the sight. Months of work had gone into achieving those small changes, indicating the tissues m
ight actually be forming a functional neural network—a brain of sorts.

  So far, so good, Tag thought.

  The med bay hatch opened, and Tag almost jumped from his holoscreen in surprise. Curtis Morgan, Tag’s medical assistant, stood at the entrance.

  “You’ve got to check out one of the viewports,” Morgan said. “If you’ll pardon my brashness, I bet it’s a fair bit more interesting than whatever you’re looking at.”

  “Can’t. Too much work to do,” Tag countered.

  “I expected as much from you.” Morgan sauntered over to the holoscreen and leaned on one of the counters. He wore a mock pleading expression. “Dr. Brewer, come join the rest of us. I promise to work double time to make up for whatever you’re missing.”

  Tag sighed and held up his hands in a supplicating gesture. “Fine, fine. I need the break anyway.”

  The duo exited the med bay and walked down the corridor to the mess hall. The benches along the tables were filled with crew members sharing drinks and staring at the massive viewport. It showed a glimpse of what lay outside the ship via the hull-mounted cameras. A glittering display of distant stars shone behind an enormous globe burning with fire and gas.

  A marine standing with her arms crossed nodded a greeting at Tag. “There’s Eta,” Staff Sergeant Kaufman said, gesturing toward the solar system’s sun. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Gods, yes,” Tag said. It had been years since he had seen a star this close. The last time had been Earth’s own sun, shortly after starting this mission. Eta might be a good eight or nine light-minutes away, but he could practically feel the star’s warmth on his flesh and found himself wishing he could step off the ship, if only for a brief spacewalk.

  Another planet inched into existence from the cam’s periphery. Icy white, it shimmered in the display as if a fine mist covered it. Three moons orbited it like circling gulls.

  “And there’s Eta-Five,” Tag said then looked at Kaufman. “I’m jealous. You get to set foot on her. I just sit in the lab and wait patiently for you all to bring me samples.”

  “Jealous? That planet is colder than space. Ice everywhere. Storms. It’s not exactly going to be a pleasant stroll on the beach.”