“Come on,” Soares said, fitting his wet vest back to his body and lifting his rifle. Cole grabbed the shotgun and followed, unsure if he should call the drone to flank him again and deciding that leaving it to guard the cave wasn’t a bad thing. He followed toward the sunlight, seeing that the other exit to the cave looked out over a wide valley stretching far below them. Soares dropped low and pulled a small pair of binoculars from a pouch. Using the scope of his rifle to see, he handed the binoculars to Cole.
“Count two, both with weapons,” Soares said, making Cole’s breath catch in his throat as he hadn’t seen the movements of the shapes far below them. He shifted his sights to where aliens stood in the open on guard, although he couldn’t see what they were guarding.
“Our intel shows this place being the next collection shipment site,” Soares told Cole. “So get comfortable and learn everything you can about them. This is our way in, kid.”
Chapter 16
Lina
Six days spent in the dark, frightening confines of a submarine moving underwater was too much for some people. Lina was suffering; she knew herself well enough to recognize the signs of stress affecting her mood, but the first person to flip out was one of the men brought along to fix the constant issues the machine was plagued by.
It happened during a mealtime, when the few people marking time inside the echoing tube of metal that swung between too hot and too cold, depending on which section they were in, and it happened fast.
Lina was with Monet, sitting at a table far from the others as they usually did. They both whipped their heads around at the sudden noise of a metal tray hitting the deck and clattering loudly. Given how deathly quiet everything usually was, the loud noise followed by the ensuing yells of anger shocked everyone.
“Back off, asshole,” a man yelled. “I was here first.”
“Hey, buddy, relax,” the man being yelled at said, chuckling lightly like he couldn’t believe what was happening. “I’m sorry, okay? Here, take my foo—”
Crash!
The angry man slapped the metal tray out of his hand to spill the contents, following up the outburst with a two-handed shove to his chest, bowling him backwards. More shouts erupted from the others present as a nothing incident blossomed into a full-blown fist fight. The man who had been shoved to the deck scrambled to his feet and advanced on the shorter engineer with sudden purpose, pushing up the sleeves of his coveralls and forming a fist to deliver his response.
Others tried to intervene, but the two men had gone from standing happily in line to tearing chunks out of one another in seconds.
Lina saw Monet’s hand twitch instinctively to the gun she usually wore on her leg, but under the order of Gerard, all weapons were safely shut away, or “stowed,” behind a locked door until they were needed.
Not a woman to be dissuaded by the mere lack of a gun, she rose and walked towards the two men locked in a snarling, spitting embrace as they rolled over and over, each trying to gain the upper hand, and both failing miserably.
To Lina, it resembled two children solving a disagreement in the dirt of the village she grew up in before a parent or another adult waded in to break it up. Watching Monet stalk the fighters, she rose without thinking to back her up.
Monet seized her opportunity when the man who started the whole thing gained the high ground and pinned his victim to the deck, readying a blow that would have done some serious damage if it connected and the guy’s head had nowhere to go.
She grabbed the fist at the furthest part of the backswing and pulled, toppling him off the other guy before she stepped in between them and bawled a single word.
“Enough!”
Her furious roar carried enough authority to snap the taller guy out of his rage, but the engineer stumbled upright and started in her direction. The look in his eyes said it all; he’d lost his mind and would fight anyone right then.
He didn’t get the chance, because Lina’s intercept route had taken her past one of the dropped trays, which she swung with both hands to flatten against his face. He paused for a moment before dropping to the ground with a clatter, the weapon falling from her hands and landing on his legs.
Monet peered at Lina, tried to hide a smile, and managed to nod her thanks to keep her face from breaking apart in a wide grin. She reached down to help the other guy up.
“Thanks,” he mumbled, dabbing at his mouth and coming away with bloody fingertips.
“Thanks yourself,” she replied. “Next time, keep your shit together.”
He covered his face with both oily hands and rocked from side to side as he cried loudly, muttering, “I can’t take it anymore, I can't take it anymore.”
“What the hell’s going on in my galley?” Gerard barked, entering the cramped room with obvious presence. Nobody had the chance to reply as a dull shudder ran through the boat, which resulted in a noticeable reduction in forward momentum. The deck seemed to push upwards against their legs, logic dictating they were heading for the surface, when the noise and vibration of their engines suddenly cut.
“Captain to the bridge,” the boat’s speakers announced in a clipped, urgent tone. Gerard eyeballed the assembled people one more time before leaving and barking over his shoulder, “Get that man medical assistance.”
“We’re definitely not moving,” Monet said as she paced the tiny compartment she shared with Lina.
Lina was confused, because it certainly felt as though they were. If anything, she reasoned they were swaying more than before whatever had broken had caused them to surface. Monet couldn’t control her own frustration any longer and stormed out of their room to depart up the stairs—or “climbing the ladders,” which was what the same thing on a submarine absolutely had to be called—to reach the bridge where Gerard seemed to be in his element. Lina followed, knowing her well enough to either go with her or stay the hell out of her way.
“Run another test on aft ballast tanks,” he ordered, turning away to peer closely at a display readout.
“Negative, nothing,” the report came back.
“Electrical or mechanical?” Gerard said, making Lina unclear as to whether he was thinking out loud or asking a question of another person.
“Not a frickin’ clue,” another man said as he climbed out from underneath a workstation. “I guess I can check the wiring from here to there, but…” He shrugged, implying that the job would take as long as it took, and he expected it to take a while.
“Do it,” Gerard said. “In the meantime… why the hell are you two in my control room?”
“Finding out what’s going on,” Monet shot back with equal forcefulness. Gerard sighed, remembering himself and deflating a little.
“You know what a ballast tank is?” Lina and Monet exchanged a blank look, making Gerard sigh again and explain it at a basic level.
“The ballast tanks control the boat’s buoyancy—that means we can go up and down under the water by becoming heavier or lighter. You see, we pump air into the tanks to make us move up and we let the seawater in to make us move down. Basically, air is lighter than wa—”
“Skip the Baby Einstein lesson,” Monet said. “We get it. What’s the issue?”
“The issue is that the damn forward tanks decided to purge themselves when we were moving. We can't pump water back into them, so we’re dangling about ten feet under the water, which is why we’re bouncing around more than I’d like. If we try to dive, we’ll just end up dropping her ass until we’re vertical.”
“That’s not good,” Lina said.
“No shit,” Gerard agreed. “So first we have to see why the tanks decided to do their own thing, and second, we need to figure out how we can make them do what we want.”
“How long will that take?” Monet asked. Gerard did not look impressed with her question.
“That depends on what the problem is, and whether we can even fix it. Right now, we’re on the very western edge of the north Pacific, and our nearest land is maybe fi
fteen hundred miles away, which would mean another week spent on the surface heading south by southeast to Hawaii. We’ve got another three thousand miles to reach our objective, and neither of these options are guaranteed because the damn aliens could find us at any time and sink us with a spork. To answer your original question, it’ll take as long as it takes, or it won't happen at all, and we’ll die out here.”
“What can we do to help?” Monet asked, not taking his frustrated hostility personally.
Gerard sighed again and rubbed a meaty hand over his face.
“Just keep an eye on the crew,” he said. “People are starting to come undone, and I can't waste my time on that shit. We’ll have to surface and check the situation. If we can't find the problem and fix it, we need to find a way around it. If we can't find a way around it, we need to turn tail and head home.”
“Can we go outside?” Lina asked, surprising them both.
“You want to go out on deck?” Gerard asked.
“Yes. Please.”
“I, err, I don’t see why not.” He shrugged as if searching his mind for a logical reason she couldn’t go outside. “Might even help to have some eyes up there looking out for trouble. I’d leave it until the morning if I were you, though. Not much to see out here with the sun on the other side. And you’ll need to wear a life preserver, and nobody ever goes out there alone.”
“Thank you,” Lina said. “I hadn’t even seen the ocean until recently, and I want to see just how big it really is.”
Lina found out the answer the following dawn. It was unbelievable. So vast was the enormity of their isolation that she was breathless, and when the sun broke over the eastern horizon to transform the glow into a direct beam of bright light unmarred by even a whisper of clouds so far as she could see, a tear rolled from each eye to carve lines down her cheeks.
The beauty of it, the sheer magnitude of what she saw, was almost too much for her sheltered mind to cope with. Her emotions ran riot and she was filled with the overflowing feeling that there was so much more of their world she wanted to see, so many places she wanted to go, that her burning desire to break humanity free from the clutches of the aliens gathered in intensity and renewed the fire within her.
She had no idea how long she stood there, just watching the unending shimmer of gently rolling water reflecting the sun’s rays as it inched higher in the sky until she began to feel the warmth of it banish the chill the pre-dawn air had left her with.
“It’s something, isn't it?” Monet’s voice came to her from the hatch behind leading down into the claustrophobic interior of the submarine. Her words were an understatement. Lina couldn’t imagine there being words in any language worthy of describing her first experience of a sunrise on the open ocean. It came with the knowledge of how so inexplicably tiny she was when compared to the expanse of water she saw around her, and she would carry it around with her in such clarity for the rest of her life.
“It is,” she answered. “It really is.”
Monet completed the awkward climb out from the hatch and walked to stand beside her, boots clanging on the heavy metal of the outer hull, which almost made Lina feel as though their uncomfortable metal tube hadn’t earned the right to be out there.
Perhaps that’s why we’re stranded, she thought, giving in to her natural tendency toward superstition. Perhaps we’ve made the sea unhappy by crossing here… if only it knew we were trying to save it.
“Yeah,” Monet went on, unknowingly spoiling the moment. “Anyway, breakfast is cooking and I need to make sure nobody else fights over it. Come and get some before it’s all gone.”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Lina told her, closing her eyes and letting the sun warm her skin.
Chapter 17
Jack
Today was the day. Adrenaline had already begun to surge through Jack’s body as they waited. He’d suffered a restless night, and by the looks of the others around him, so had they. Olivia sat in the modified pilot’s chair, seeming as confident as ever. He wondered if that was a thin veneer, and if the woman would crack when the time came to attack. He hoped not.
They’d trained hard over the last week, renewing their optimism, which had dwindled over the last decade. He glanced to his wife, wishing for the fifth time that morning that she’d gone to Norway with Benji.
“It’ll be fine, Jack.” This from Daniel, but a slight waver in his voice betrayed his words.
Beside them was another of the alien’s ships. The Barony, before it was so aptly named, had been founded by a group of tough ex-military members, along with some even harder criminals broken out of a penitentiary along the eastern coast of Scotland. They found one another holed up in northern England, and had taken Jack in. He was a scared kid back then, his parents killed. His sister… gone.
He remembered the first time their group had set a trap for one of these ships. The very one they stood inside now. None of them had thought the plan would work, but their desire for alien blood was too strong to care. To everyone’s surprise, they ended up with the ship, and killed twenty of the bastards at the same time. It was also the first batch of drones they’d acquired.
Jack peered over his shoulder, looking down the hall to the hold where three dozen of the robots sat idly, awaiting his instructions.
The boxy viewscreen window showed nothing but ocean from here on their perch, high on the western tip of France. From here, they could make the trip to Southern Spain in twenty minutes at full thrust. They’d tested the distance across Greenland only three days before.
“This is going to work,” Jack whispered to no one.
“Yes, it is.” Ava’s arm found his waist.
“Jack, this is it. Message incoming from the French woman. Nous sommes ici.”
“They’ve arrived,” Jack said. “Fire up the engines. It’s showtime.”
He’s spent too long sitting patiently, pretending their Barony was a life, a contained environment, but it had been nothing but a make-believe world. This was their reality. And Jack’s time fishing and making beer, playing with his son… that was special, but he was meant to do more. He thought about the meaning behind their groups name. The word baron was derived from the Latin baro, which meant servant or soldier. That was what they were now, and the name had never seemed so fitting.
“Taking us out.” The ship shook as the engines powered up, and seconds later, the old vessel rose from the rocky cliffside.
Sylvie
She watched the new cargo land through her scope and shifted in her hiding spot. The branch of a tree dug into her side, and she felt bugs crawling on her ankles. The transport was different from the spaceships they used, or the hovercars, and she guessed they’d sent this model through the gates. They were snub-nosed, short, and narrow enough to fit through a gateway, unlike the larger vessels. She was grateful they couldn’t bring more reinforcements of their ships, but they’d managed to bring enough through.
From what she could tell, they’d moved some sort of tanks to Earth from wherever they came, as well as countless of their people. The ones she’d seen had been thin, weak almost, but the newest batch… they were thicker, taller. She didn’t want to come face to face with one, not if she could help it.
Maxime was ten yards away, but she was unable to spot him hiding in the brush. She returned her gaze to the transport as it lowered, settling by a building near their main ship. The mine operation was in full swing, as if someone was trying to impress their leader. Sylvie watched closely as the transport opened. A few of the aliens approached, legs bent backwards and moving slowly. One of them reached into a pocket, pulled one of the misters, and breathed deeply before returning it to the safety of its uniform.
More gathered now, and they lined up quickly as one of the aliens stepped off the transport ship’s ramp. It raised an arm, and she saw its slim mouth move. The group of its people echoed a phrase back, some kind of a salute, the noise reaching her ears.
She sent the message
on her tablet. “We are here.” Her fingers trembled in anticipation of the looming attack. Her group had remained in hiding all these years, and while they had fought to stay alive, they’d done nothing beyond that. Now they were going to assist in the reclamation of Earth. Gabriel’s death would be avenged, as would Adam’s, along with the billions of others lost to the Occupation.
She found she was smiling as she stared at the newly landed vessel. It was much like a semi-trailer, with thrusters on the bottom. Ten of the aliens ran to the side of it, unlatching the hull. It slammed to the ground, catching one of them in the process. It was pinned to the dirt, arms flailing.
Sylvie cringed as someone pulled a weapon, shooting the injured alien in the head. It stopped moving.
The first large crate was rolled from inside, almost tipping down the ramp. She counted eight crates, each at least ten feet along each side. These had to be the misters. This shipment would be making its way to the Detroit facility next, or perhaps this was their hub, where they would send some of the supply to their African mines.
The crate was unloaded, and they began closing up the transport.
“Come on, come on.” She lowered the scope, peering to the sky above the mines. Where were they? If the misters got away, this was all for nothing. Destroying the mine, an enemy vessel, and three hundred aliens would be a good day, but the Reclaimers had a plan, and the devices would give them the upper hand they needed.
Plus, the way this group was deferring to the newcomer, he was clearly important to them. The old phrase about cutting the head off the snake came to mind, and Sylvie reached behind her, pulling the MK-21 and placing it firmly on the ground. Using the telescopic scope, she found the leader in the crosshairs. If they didn’t arrive, she was taking this one for her own.
Rise | Book 3 | Reclamation Page 11
